.3^' 




w 









i^^J^^^^W 



SLAVERY 



IN THE 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA; 

ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS, 



FROM THE 



ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CONFEDERACY, 



TO THE 



PRESENT TIME. 



A WORD TO THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH. , 



v/ 

BY HENRY ^HERMAN, 

COUNSEILOR AT LAW. 



" Then I thought that Conciliators were but ignorant men, that were will- 
ing to please all, and would pretend to reconcile the world by principles which 
they did not understand themselves ; I have since perceived, that if the amiable- 
ness of peace and concord had no hand ia the business, yet greater light, and 
stronger judgment, usually are with the Reconcilers, than with either of the 
contending parties."— Richard Baxik&'s review of his early opinions. 



SECOND EDITION, 

HARTFORD: 

HURLBURT & POND, PUBLISHERS. 

I860. 



t 



s 



Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by 

HENRY SHERMAN, 

p 

In the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the United States, 
for the District of Connecticut. 



CASE. LOCKWOOD AND COMPANY. PRINTERS, 






TO 



THE FRIENDS OF 
THE SUPREMACY OF OUR NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY, 

AND 

OUR NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY IN ITS SUPREMACY, 

THE 

TRUE FRIENDS OF 
THE UNION, OF FREEDOM, AND HUMANITY, 
THIS VOLUME 
IS FRATERNALLY INSCRIBED BY 

THE AUTHOR. 



PREFACE 



I HAVE long thought that the more modern controversies 
on the subject of Shivery, wliich liave obtained in this 
country, have ori^^inated mostly in the absence of a just 
and proper understanding and appreciation of the The- 
ory of our Government in its National, State, and Ter- 
ritorial relations, under the Constitution, and the changes 
which these have undergone by the extension of our Na- 
tional domain and jurisdiction beyond the anticipations and 
calculations of its framr'rs. In [)rcparing this work for the 
press, 1 have endeavored to develope these relations and 
changes in their complicity with this agitating topic, with 
a \ iew to a more general understanding of it, and a more 
harmonious ac(iuiesence in the privileges, as well as the 
restraints, of whii'h it has been made the subject. 

Tiie Karl of Chatham, standing in his place in the Brit- 
ish House of Lords to oppose the aggressions of Ministry 
upon tiie rights of the American Colonies, in 1775, made 
the memorable and truthful declaration — " In every free 
State it is the Constitution, and the Constitution only, which 
limits both Sovereignty and Allegiance. This doctrine is 
A* 



VI PREFACE. 



no temporary doctrine taken up on particular occasions, to 
answer particular purposes. It is involved in no meta- 
physical doubts and intricacies, but is clear, precise, and 
determinate. It is recorded in all our Law books. It is 
written in the great Volume of Nature." 

In this country, there are those who say with General 
Walker, in his letter of resignation, addressed to Secretary 
Cass, — " The Constitution is not Sovereign because it is 
created by Sovereignty. With us Sovereignty rests exclu- 
sively with the people of each State. — The National Gov- 
ernment is not Sovereign, much less any department of 
that Government, for the same reason." 

And again, there are those whose views are expressed 
by General Lane, in a letter from the Territory of Kansas, 
January, 1858, wherein he says — " I suppose you know 
that the feeling here is strong against any Congressional 
Enabling Act. We want no interference with our affairs 
by Congress ; feeling that we are fully competent to settle 
these matters ourselves. We want to be let alone." 

And again, there are others still, who cherish the senti- 
ment of Lord Chatham. Now, exclusively of all partizan 
feeling on the subject, it is evident that the doctrine enun- 
ciated by the latter, is directly at variance with that 
maintained by either of the other class of thinkers. Yet 
it contains that great principle of freedom, the violation of 
which caused the Revolution of 1688, in England, whose 
results were the overthrow of the doctrine of the Divine 
Right of Kings, the recognition of the people as a source 
of Sovereignty in the State, and the establishment of the 
Crown on the heads, and the succession in the line, of 



PREFACE. vii 



William and Marj, Prince and Princess of Orange, by 
act of Parliament, by Law, in 1690. In other words, it 
gave birth to the Free Constitution of Great Britain, 
to which the Earl of Chatham refers. 

Just one century after this, the American Revolution 
inaugurated the greater triumph of the same principle of 
Freedom, in the establishment of a freer Government and 
Sovereignty, called the United States of America, under a 
freer Constitution, which was finally ratified by all of the 
States in 1790. 

Both of these Constitutions were founded upon the 
princij^le that there can be no allegiance where there is no 
Sovereignty. And that where there is Sovereignty, there 
must of necessity be allegiance. If then " with us. Sover- 
eignty rests exclusively with the people of each State," 
where rests allegiance ? Does the State owe allegiance to 
the people, or do the people owe allegiance to the State ? 
Do the people owe allegiance to the Constitution, or the 
Constitution to the people ? Or do the people, in their 
exclusive Sovereignty, owe allegiance only to themselves ? 

"With us, there is a National Sovereignty, and there is 
also a State Sovereignty. There are State Constitutions 
which limit both Sovereignty and Allegiance in the State; 
And there is a National Constitution which limits both 
Sovereignty and Allegiance in the United States. Each 
has its particular, appropriate, and necessary sphere of 
action. Either may claim and enforce the particular, 
appropriate, and necessary Allegiance which is its due. 
With us there are no Territorial Constitutions. 

Allegiance in a State, is submission to the Supreme 



Vm PREFACE. 



power of the State within the limits of its jurisdiction. 
Allegiance in a Nation composed of Confederated States, 
and dependent Territories, is submission to the Supreme 
power of the National Sovereignty within the sphere of its 
jurisdiction. In either case, both Sovereignty and Alle- 
giance are limited by the Constitution, and by the Go?isti- 
tufion only. In either case, it is not for the people to dis- 
claim or withold their allegiance because, perchance, they 
were parties to the Compact which limits and defines the 
Sovereignty. With us, even the States in their Sovereign 
capacity owe a certain allegiance to the National Suprem- 
acy, which allegiance is also limited by the Constitution. 
It is not in the power, therefore, of the people of a single 
State to throw off the allegiance due from the State to the 
National Sovereignty, without destroying the Sovereignty 
of the State itself. Nor is it in the power of the people 
of any one of the States to throw off their allegiance to 
its Sovereignty without abrogating the State Constitution. 
With us, so far is Sovereignty from resting " exclusively 
with the people of each State," so restrained are they by 
the National Sovereignty, that they cannot change their 
own State Government from a Republican to a Monarchical, 
or to any other form. Hence it is absurd, nay more it is 
revolutionary, to say that because the people united in 
creating the National Sovereignty, therefore it is not Sover- 
eign. 

Much less are the people Sovereign in the Territory, or 
Territories, belonging to the National Sovereignty, called 
the United States. The very idea of ownership involves 
the idea of Sovereign jurisdiction, which also includes the 



PREFACE. IX 



idea of allegiance. This Sovereignty and allegiance may 
indeed be qualified, or limited, by an enactment of the 
General Sovereignty establishing a local Territorial Gov- 
ernment, but neither is thereby extinguished, nor is the 
authority thereby delegated to the people, or to the Terri- 
torial Government, made exclusive : Nor does it give the 
people inhabiting therein a right to a higher state of polit- 
ical existence. The transfer from a Territorial to a State 
Organization involves a declaration of independence on the 
part of the Territory, or a relinquishment of its Suprem- 
acy over it on the part of the National Sovereignty. It 
proposes a condition of political existence which cannot be 
created without depriving the National Sovereignty of a 
part at least of its Supremacy. Not only so, but, with us, 
it also places the New Organization in the relations and 
position of a co-partner in the Sovereignty existing in the 
National Confederacy. 

And has the National Sovereignty no interest in this 
political transformation ? May it not say whether at all, 
or upon what terms, or subject to what conditions, it will 
consent to this new creation? Consent to relinquish its 
own Supremacy over its own Territory ? And admit the 
New State, thus created, into the great Federal Copart- 
nership ? 

The People of the United States, the source of Sover- 
eignty with us, have said, Constitution, Article VL, 
Sec. 2, — This Constitution, and the laws of the United 
States which shall he made in pursuance thereof, and all 
Treaties made, or which shall be made under the authority 
of the United States, shall be the Supreme Law of the 



PREFACE. 



land : and the Judges of every State, shall be bound thereby, 
anything in the Constitution and laws of any State, to the 
contrary notwithstanding." 

We may look in vain for a better exposition of Sover- 
eignty in the Government of the United States than is 
here found. Supremacy to govern is Sovereignty. The 
Constitution is not Sovereignty, it is the Charter of Sover- 
eignty. It is not law except in the sense of its Supremacy. 
Nor yet is it Supreme by itself alone, but also in the laws 
made in pursuance of its provisions, and in the Treaties 
made under the authority which it establishes. Law is not 
the act, but the voice of Sovereignty. The Constitution 
does not act; the Law does not act; Treaties do not act; 
but it is the Officers of the Government in their various 
departments who perform its behests. They act, and act 
with all the power and might of the Sovereignty whose 
laws they enforce, whose mandates they execute, whose 
voice directs their duties. It is immaterial how this Su- 
preme power originates, or how it exists, so long as it is 
legitimate. While it exists, its powers are Sovereign with- 
in the sphere of its jurisdiction. This is limited by the 
Constitution only, and cannot be infringed or repudiated, 
either by the States, or by the people of the States, or 
Territories, so long as the Constitution is maintained in its 
integrity. 

The Sovereignty of the Crown of Great Britain, estab- 
lished under the English Constitution by the Revolution 
of 1688, was called a Popular Sovereignty, not because it 
recognized the Supremacy of the popular will, but because 
it conceded that the people were one of the sources of its 



PREFACE. XI 



Sovereignty. The Constitution of the United States 
estabhshed a freer and still more Popular Sovereignty, in 
that it recognized the People as the only source of its 
Supremacy. Popular Sovereignty does not mean the " ex- 
clusive Sovereignty of the People;" or a Sovereignty 
exclusive of Constitutions and Laws; but a Sovereignty, 
whether State or National, established under a Constitu- 
tion formed by the people, acting freely, and without any 
extraneous or arbitrary compulsion or restraint. The 
Constitution thus established by the people is the Charter 
of Supremacy to the government, in every Popular Sover- 
eignty. A State Sovereignty is called a Popular Sover- 
eignty because in it both Sovereignty and Allegiance are 
limited by a Constitution created by the free voice of the 
people. So also is the National Sovereignty of the United 
States called a Popular Sovereignty, for the same reason. 
A Popular Territorial Sovereignty is an absurdity. The 
very terms are contradictory and antagonistic. Territorial 
is colonial; it implies dependence, and sovereign depend- 
ence is a political absurdity. 

The people inhabiting in a dependent Territory, there- 
fore, must necessarily be subject to the Sovereignty upon 
which they depend. The Sovereignty acquired under the 
Constitution is supreme. The Sovereignty acquired by 
the cession of Territory is supreme. The Sovereignty 
acquired by the purchase of Territory is also supreme; 
and if there be any greater supremacy in Sovereignty, it 
certainly must be that title to supremacy which is acquired 
by conquest. In all these modes of acquisition the exclu- 
sive supremacy of the National Government in its Terri- 



Xll PREFACE. 



torial domain, thus expanded, cannot be questioned. It 
is above and beyond all doubt and peradventure. And 
although, with us, by general consent as well as by special 
compact, the Constitution has been adopted and referred 
to as limiting the exercise of thisSupremacy in our Federal 
and State relations, still the Supremacy of the National 
Sovereignty in its own Territorial domain is not thereby 
depreciated or destroyed. It may indeed delegate a por- 
tion of its authority to the people, by the establishment of 
a local Territorial government, but it does not thereby 
relinquish its own Supremacy, or release the people inhab- 
iting therein from their allegiance to it, or render them 
independent of its superior Sovereignty. It may, at will, 
repeal the Act conferring those powers, and resume its 
exclusive jurisdiction over them. Hence there is, there 
can be, no inherent right in the people inhabiting in such 
Territory to form a government for themselves, independ- 
ently of the National Sovereignty. This right, with us, is 
exclusive only in the people of a State, 'provided it be 
Republican and in conformity with their allegiance to the 
National Sovereignty. The great error of our day is, in 
claiming that State rights belong to the people inhabiting 
in the Territories before they become a State. With us, 
they cannot become a State Organization without the con- 
sent of the Sovereignty on which they depend. They 
cannot adopt a Constitution for their own government, in 
anticipation of their transfer from a Territorial to a State 
Organization, which would be of any validity, or worth, 
without the assent of the National Sovereignty, or its 
recognition of it after it is made. Still if the Supreme 



PREFACE, Xlll 



Sovereignty does consent to their transition from a Terri- 
torial to a State Organization, it must necessarily consent, 
nay more it guarantees, that the New Government shall 
be a Popular one; that is, a Government, or Sovereignty, 
established under a Constitution framed and adopted by 
the people who are to be ruled under it, acting freely, and 
witliout any hostile compulsion, hindrance, or restraint 
whatsoever. Any other theory than this would be fatal to 
the preservation of this Union, without any reference to 
the question of Slavery. 

Thus much I have ventured by way of Preface or intro- 
duction to this work, although I may make some repetition 
of what I have here said in treating of these principles in 
their bearing upon Slavery in the United States. The 
whole subject is one which ought to be more carefully 
pondered over, and clearly understood, by our statesmen 
and politicians of the present day, as well as by the people 
in all parts of the country: And if I may hereby contribute 
towards its elucidation in any degree I shall not regret 
having attempted it. 

HENRY SHERMAN. 

Hartford, Ct., Nov. 1st, 1858. 



B 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

SLAVERY UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. 

Introduction — Slavery in the Original States — The Declaration 
of Independence — The Confederation— The Ordinance of 1787 — 
The Constitution — The Compact of the Confederation and Slave- 
ry — The Ordinance of 1787 and Slavery — The Ordinance of 
1787 and the Constitution — The Constitution and Slavery — 
The Constitution, the Ordinance of 1787, and Slavery— The 
Protective Law of 1793— The Constitution and the Protective 
Law of 1793— The Constitution, the Protective Law of 1793, 
and Slavery— The Constitution and the admission of New States— 
Tlie Constitutional theory of the recognition of Slavery— Restrict- 
ive Acts of Congress from 1794 to 1820— The purchase of the 
Louisiana Territory— Its relations to Slavery— Act distributing 
the Territory— Its restrictions upon Slavery— The Convention 
with France and Slavery in said Territory— Character of the 
Compact— Act of 1805 in relation to said Territory— The Admis- 
sion of the State of Louisiana— Organization of the Missouri 
Territory— Admission of Mississippi— Alabama— Ohio— Indiana- 
Illinois, and Slavery — The Admission of Louisiana and Slavery- 
Extent of the Constitutional recognition of Slavery : page 9. 

CHAPTER II. 

slavery outside of the constitution. 

Sovereignty under the Confederation— Sovereignty under the Consti- 
tution—The Constitutional National Sovereignty— Recognition of 
Slavery under the Constitution— The National Sovereignty outside 



XVI CONTENTS. 



of the Constitution — Source of its Supremacy over the New Ter- 
ritory — Admission of New States by it — Its power over Slavery — 
Application of Missouri for admission into the Union — Nature of 
the application — Its history — The Compact for her admission — 
Its unconstitutionality — Its nature and relations to Slavery — 
The resolution of admission — The Annexation and admission of 
Texas — Nature of the Compact — Its unconstitutionality — Its rela- 
tions to Slavery — The acquisition of foreign Territory from Mexi- 
co — Its relations to Slavery — The Compromise Measures of 1850 — 
Their nature and relations to Slavery — The Protective Law of 
1850: page 61. 

CHAPTER III. 

THE REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPACT. 

Character of the National Sovereignty of the United States on the 
^ admission of Missouri — The Compact with Missouri — Its repeal — 
The effect upon Slavery — Opinion of the Supreme Court in the 
Dred Scott Case — Its relations to Slavery — Rule laid down for the 
construction of the Constitution — Its general applicability — Its 
relation to the powers of Congress in the New Territory — In the 
admission of New States formed out of it — Over Slavery in said 
Territory and New States — Effect of the Repeal of the Mis- 
souri Compact in 1854 — The enforcement of the Protective Law of 
1850 — Effect of the Repeal and the Opinion of the Supreme 
Court upon Slavery — Nature of the Compromise Compacts — Their 
importance to Slavery — Reasons for the Repeal of the Missouri 
Compact applicable to the Compact with Texas — To the Compro- 
mise Measures of 1850 — So also of the ruling of the Supreme 
Court — Source of the Supremacy of the Government over the 
New Territory defined by it — This Supremacy the basis of the 
Compromises in relation to Slavery — The Compromises the only 
reliance of Slavery — Importance of good faith in their observance — 
The further extension and recognition of Slavery — The necessity 
of concession and conciliation — The Common National stand- 
point — Paramount importance of the Union to the cause of freedom 
and humanity — Conclusion : . , . . . page 140. 



SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 



ITS 



NATIOIiAL RECOGl^ITION AND RELATIONS, 

FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CONFEDERACY TO 
THE PRESENT TIME. 



CHAPTER I. 

SLAVERY UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. 
I. 

There is, perhaps, no subject which presents itself 
to the consideration of every citizen of our Republic, 
at the present day, with more especial interest than 
the subject of African or Negro Slavery. And there 
is none which, in its national aspects and relations, 
is, generally, so little understood. If, as in the origi- 
nal States, its recognition and extension were re- 
stricted to the natural increase of an existing slave 
population as the only source of supply, it could not 
create any material apprehension. But the extension 
of our national domain and sovereignty beyond its 
original constitutional limit, by the acquisition of 
foreign territory, and its liability to be in like man- 
ner still farther extended, thus introducing continu- 
ally within our national jurisdiction an additional 
2 



10 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 



slave population, with its additional source of in- 
crease, make it a matter of great and increasing 
national interest and importance to us all. It is, 
therefore, essential and necessary that the common, 
and more especially the educated mind should be 
rightly informed in relation to it, and that the true 
theory and extent of its national recognition and 
relations should be clearly understood. I propose 
to consider the subject, in these aspects of it, under 
two general propositions embraced in the following 
interrogatories, viz. : — 

First. How far is Slavery and the ownership 
OP slave property recognized and protected under 

THE provisions OF THE CONSTITUTION ? 

Second. What is the origin and the basis of 
ITS recognition and protection beyond the consti- 
tutional LIMIT? 

These are questions which address themselves with 
peculiar force to every man who loves our national 
Union, who is proud of our national character, and 
who would preserve both in perpetual and happy har- 
mony with the supremacy of the Federal sovereignty 
and the rights of the individual States ; with the para- 
mount law of the Constitution and the great interests 
and claims of freedom and humanity every where. 
I shall endeavor to answer them fairly, without fear 
or favor, without prejudice or partiality toward any 
portion of our country, and without any sectarian, 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 11 

sectional, or partisan aim or bias. I shall treat them 
as political questions merely, without any reference 
to Slavery as a question of morals, or of religion, 
and without expressing or meaning to intimate any 
opinion as to the right or the wrong of holding 
human beings in bondage. 

I premise, then, that The Declaeation of Inde- 
PENDEXCE was a political manifesto enunciating cer- 
tain political rights, claimed to be inherent in the 
American Colonies of Great Britain under the British 
Constitution, of which they were wrongfully deprived 
by the government of the parent State, the depriva- 
tion of which justified them in breaking away from 
their allegiance to it and proclaiming themselves 
independent of its sovereignty. It was a compact 
under and by virtue of which the Colonies mutually 
pledged themselves, each to every other, to assume 
a position of independence before the world, to 
maintain it at all hazards, and to abide by it forever. 

This compact was revolutionary in its origin, its 
nature, and its aims, and had no specific reference to 
any other than the revolutionary circumstances 
which originated and followed it. It was made more 
specific and permanent by the Compact of the Confed- 
eration under which the Colonies leagued together 
in a perpetual union, achieved their independence, 
and became as United States a sovereign power on 
earth. 



12 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

Whatever may have been the political guarantees, 
pledges, or stipulations, embraced in the Declaration 
of Independence, these were superseded by, except 
so far as they were merged or comprehended in, the 
Compact of the Confederation. The latter was again 
qualified by the political compact contained in the 
Ordinance of 1787, and wholly superseded by the 
final compact of the Constitution. 

The Ordinance of 1787 was a compact in relation 
to the proprietorship and government of certain 
territory, originally claimed to belong to individual 
States, and which, for the purpose of securing a 
more permanent national union, was by them ceded 
to the United States, for the common benefit of such 
States as should become members of the Federal Alli- 
ance proposed by the revolutionary Congress in the 
Articles of Confederation. 

The Constitution was a compact between the 
people of the original States for the establishment of 
their national unity under a General Sovereignty^ with 
specified powers, securing to the people in general 
and to the States in severalty, all the rights, privi- 
leges, and immunities, which they had acquired in 
achieving their independence of the parent power. 
Among these was the conceded right of property in 
human flesh and bones. Slavery. Their situation 
in relation to it was peculiar, and although it was 
felt to be a strange inheritance yet it was the 



ITS NATIONAL KECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 13 



heritage of all of them, and was the only oppression 
which could not be renounced or removed with the 
renunciation of the sovereignty of Great Britain. 

Neither was it, nor could it be made, a matter of 
reproach to any of them. It was an institution 
introduced into America by the parent State, and 
acquiesced in by the colonies themselves, in an age 
and at a period in their history when the traffic was 
pursued by all nations without any special sense of 
its enormity. 

The Northern Colonies participated in it as well as 
and equally with the Southern Colonies. The navi- 
gation of the New England ports was largely employed 
on the African coast, and her commercial marine 
continually engaged in the transportation and ship- 
ment of slaves to the different American markets, by 
the aid of American capital. No stigma, therefore, 
can be cast on our brethren in the South for its intro- 
duction, or for the fruits of its inheritance, which is 
not in like manner and equally applicable to us at 
the North, and to the English nation.* After its 
introduction all became equally eager to embark in 
the traffic, to avail themselves of its profits, and to 
cherish and protect the right of property which it 
gave in the subjects of their enterprise and their 
speculations. Hence the existence of Slavery and 



* See Annals of Congress, 1791. App. 

2* 



14 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES. 

the ownership of slave property, were subjects which 
called for peculiar consideration, for indulgences and 
concessions, and for guards and guarantees, in the 
formation of a National Government which was to be 
of general, perpetual, and irrevocable jurisdiction. 

The compact of the Confederation makes no 
mention of the subject of Slavery, and contains no 
specific provision in relation to it, although it is his- 
torically true that every one of the thirteen Original 
States which ratified it, was at the time a slavehold- 
ing State; and the Confederation was expressly 
designed to cement and make perpetual the league 
of union formed by the Colonies under the Declara- 
tion of Independence. The slightest approximation 
to the subject is found in the Articles of Confedera- 
tion, which provide: — 

Article IY. Sec. I. — " The better to secure and 
perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among 
the people of the different states in this union, the 
free inhabitants of each of these states, — paupers, 
vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, — 
shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities 
of free citizens in the several states ; and the people 
of each state shall have free ingress and egress to and 
from any other|state, and shall enjoy therein all the 
privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the 
same duties, impositions, and restrictions as the 
inhabitants thereof respectively : provided that such 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 15 

restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent the 
removal of property imported into any state to any 
other state of which the owner is an inhabitant." 

This latter clause was evidently intended to pro- 
tect the ownership of slave property as well as ordi- 
nary merchandise, in transitu from the port of entry 
in one state to the place of ownership in another 
state. 

But the first direct, general, and National recog- 
nition of Slavery and the right of property in negro 
slaves, of which we have any full record, is contained 
in the political compact made between the several 
states and the United States, for the government of 
the territory north-west of the river Ohio, commonly 
called THE Ordinance of 1787, which provides, — 

Article YI. — "There shall be neither slavery nor 
involuntary servitude in the said territory^ otherwise 
than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party 
shall have been duly convicted. Provided always^ 
that any person escaping into the same, from whom 
labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of 
the original states^ such fugitive may be lawfully 
reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his 
or her labor or service as aforesaid." 

The recital contained in the same Ordinance, and 
which precedes the articles of compact enumerated, 
of which the foregoing is one, declares: — '"'It is 
hereby ordained and declared by the authority afore- 



16 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES. 

said, that the following articles shall be considered 
as articles of compact between the Original States 
and the people and states in the said territory^ and 
forever remain unalterable unless by the common 
consent." 

It is evident that the phraseology here used is 
carefully selected, and was purposely guarded and 
specific. It is also evident that the compact was 
designed to be perpetual, and that it could be can- 
celed or revoked only by the parties making it, act- 
ing in the same capacity and sustaining the same 
position and relations which they now occupied. It 
is apparent, too, that Slavery is here recognized as 
an existing institution, which conferred a right of 
property in the subjects of it, and which involved a 
right to reclaim the fugitive from its servitude. But 
at the same time it must be observed that this recog- 
nition of it is restrictive. It prohibits Slavery in 
general, while the provision for its protection is 
limited to the said territory as the place of refuge 
and recaption, and to the Original States^ or any one 
of them, as the place of recognized ownership and 
escape. It could have no other application from the 
very terms of it. It could not have been intended 
to have any other, because it covered the whole 
domain, both state and national, included within the 
precincts of the Republic then called the United 
States. The person escaping must owe labor or 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 17 

service to an inhabitant of one of the original states; 
the service must be due under the laws of the state 
from which he is alleged to have escaped, and he can 
be reclaimed only when escaping into the said terri- 
tory. The reverse of the provision could not be 
maintained. A person owned, perchance, in the 
said territory, or in any state formed out of the said 
territory, escaping into any one of the original states^ 
could not be reclaimed under this provision. Nor 
could it reach the case of a fugitive from service due 
in any one state, escaping into any other state. 

It is plain, then, that the Ordinance of 1787 rec- 
ognized and protected, and was intended to recognize 
and protect, Slavery, or rather the ownership of 
slave property, only under the circumstances of own- 
ership and escape specified. It is also evident that 
it did not then, and cannot now, of itself, give it 
protection beyond the specified limits, or under any 
other than the specified circumstances. 

This Ordinance, I have observed, was made a per- 
petual compact, irrevocable except by the common 
consent of the respective parties to it. The parties 
were the Original States, (to whom as United States 
the said Territory had been ceded for the purposes 
of the Union,) on the one side ; and the people and 
States of the said Territory on the other side. The 
pledge was mutual, reciprocal, and solemn, that Sla- 
very should never be introduced there, and that it 



18 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

should never be recognized or protected there, except 
in the particular cases, and under the particular cir- 
cumstances, and within the limits specified. This, 
too, whether the people inhabiting therein remained 
under a Territorial government, or were erected into 
a State and admitted into union with the Original 
States. ^ 

The agreement could not be varied, or canceled, 
nor could Slavery lawfully exist there as a local in- 
stitution, without this common consent. Nor could 
it be recognized or protected elsewhere, under this 
provision^ by the simple admission of other and then 
unknown members into the Confederacy, under any 
combination of circumstances not contemplated or 
provided for in the terms of the compact. New States 
or Territories, other than those composing the Orig- 
inal Thirteen^ or any portion thereof, coming into the 
Confederacy thereafter, could not necessarily claim 
protection in the ownership of slave property, by vir- 
tue of the stipulation contained in this Ordinance. 

Thus far was Slavery recognized, and the owner- 
ship of slave property protected, under the Confede- 
ration and the Ordinance of 1787. How was it 
under the Constitution ? 

II. 
That the compact of the Constitution superseded 
the compact of the Confederation, in all respects, no 
one will deny. How did it affect the Ordinance of 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 19 

1787 ? Did it revoke it ? Did it extend or restrict, 
or vary in any way, its provisions ? Let us see. 

The same parties, the 07'iginal States^ which made 
the compact contained in the Ordinance, at a con- 
current era also made the compact contained in the 
Constitution. If, therefore, the Constitution abro- 
gated or varied, restricted or enlarged, the provis- 
ions of the Ordinance, it was done by the common 
consent referred to ; and hence, whatever change 
was made, was equally binding on the original par- 
ties to either. 

The recognition of Slavery by the Constitution is 
limited to three of its provisions. The first, — 

Art. 1st, Sec, II., Subd. Sd, provides for the appor- 
tionment of direct taxes, and the ratio of representation 
in Congress, upon the slave population in the several 
States, in the proportion of three-fifths. Strictly 
speaking, however, this provision recognizes the ex- 
istence of the slave population as persons, and not 
as property. Perhaps I am conceding too much, 
when I say it is a recognition of Slavery. I shall 
refer to it again, in connection with the subject, 
more particularly, hereafter. The second is, — 

Art. I., Sec. IX., Subd. 1, restricting the prohibitive 
powers of Congress over the importation of slaves, till 
after the year 1808, and this restriction is expressly 
limited to " the States noiv existing.''^ But that 
provision in the Constitution which, it is generally 



20 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 



conceded, more directly recognizes Slavery, and pro- 
tects the ownership of slave property, reads thus : — 

" Article IV., Sec. 2d. No person, held to service 
or labour in one State ^ under the laws thereof, es- 
caping into another^ shall, in consequence of any law 
or regulation therein, be discharged from such serv- 
ice or labour, but shall be delivered up on claim of 
the party to whom such service or labour may be 
.due." 

This provision is also restrictive in its terms. The 
protection given to Slavery is limited to the several 
States, as the places of ownership and escape as 
well as of refuge and reclamation. It does not com- 
prehend persons escaping from any one State into 
any Territory of the United States, but into another 
State. If it was designed to abrogate the provision 
contained in the Ordinance of 1787, it, clearly^ was 
not intended to protect the ownership of slave prop- 
erty in cases where the person escaped from any one 
State into any Territory of the United States. If it 
abrogated the Ordinance altogether, it most certainty 
took away the protective recognition guaranteed to 
Slavery in the Territories. Hence it would follow 
that under the Constitution there was no protective 
recognition given to the ownership of slave property 
when escaped into any of the Territory then belong- 
ing to the United States. This conclusion is inevitable, 
if it is claimed or conceded that the Constitution 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 21 

superseded the political compact contained in the 
Ordinance of 1787. 

But let us look at it further in this connection. 
How far was the ownership of slave property in- 
tended to be recognized and protected by the Con- 
stitution, in the minds of its framers ? To answer 
this question fully and fairly, we must determine 
what is meant by the terms cmi/ one State and ari- 
other State. Have they a definite and specific ref- 
erence, or an indefinite, illimitable application ? This 
question, again, can be properly answered only by 
taking these words in connection with the Ordi- 
nance. The parties to the respective compacts have 
themselves made them correlative and supportive of 
each other. If the two co- exist, they must be taken 
to constitute but one compact in relation to the rec- 
ognition of Slavery, or the ownership of slave prop- 
erty, in the State and Territorial domain of the 
United States. Do they co-exist, and what is the 
compact under them ? 

Now, that the Constitution was not intended to 
abrogate the Ordinance, and that it was the intention 
of its framers that the two should operate harmo- 
niously, is evident from the following enactment of 
Congress, made immediately after its organization 
under the Constitution, entitled — 



22 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

" An Act to provide for the government of the 
Territory north-iuest of the river Ohio^ 

" Whereas, In order that the Ordmance of the 
United States in Congress assembled, for the govern- 
ment of the Territory north-west of the river Ohio, 
may continue to have full effect^ it is requisite that 
certain provisions should be made so as to adapt the 
same to the present Constitution of the United 
States : — 

" Section 1. Be it enacted by the Seriate and 
House of Representatives of the United States of 
America in Congress assembled^ That in all cases in 
which, by said Ordinance, any information is to be 
given or communication made, by the Governor of 
the said Territory, to the United States in Congress 
assembled, or to any of their officers, it shall be the 
duty of the said Governor to give such information, 
and to make such communication, to the President 
of the United States ; and the President shall nomi- 
nate, and, by and with the advice and consent of the 
Senate, shall appoint, all officers which by the said 
Ordinance were to have been appointed by the United 
States in Congress assembled, and all officers so 
appointed shall be commissioned by him ; and in all 
cases where the United States in Congress assembled 
might, by the said Ordinance, revoke any commis- 
sion, or remove from any office, the President is 
hereby declared to have the same powers of revoca- 
tion and removal. 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 23 

" Section 2. And be it further enacted^ That in 
case of the death, removal, resignation, or necessary 
absence of the Governor of the said Territory, the 
Secretary thereof shall be, and he is hereby, author- 
ized and required to execute all the powers and 
perform all the duties of the Governor during the 
vacancy occasioned by the removal, resignation, or 
necessary absence of the said Governor." 

This enactment is conclusive on this point. No 
stronger demonstration can be given that there was 
no intention to abrogate the articles contained in 
the political compact of the Ordinance, or to change 
their force or validity. This Act, made for the 
avowed purpose of making that Ordinance conform- 
able to the Constitution, with both of them before 
the national legislature, must be taken to have made 
every change that was necessary to accomplish that 
object. In all other respects the Ordinance was 
conceded not only, but declared, to be consistent and 
in harmony with the provisions of the Constitution. 
It was virtually thereby again decreed that it was 
to exist in perpetuity as a political compact^ and 
should continue thereafter to be in full force, and 
have as full effect, as when originally made. Its 
provisions, its stipulations, its phraseology, were all 
declared, as it were, perfectly constitutional ; and the 
Constitution was also declared to be in harmony 



24 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 



with its provisions. The two were made co-existent, 
and supportive of each other. 

Taking, then, the two provisions together, — the 
one in the sixth Article of the Ordinance, and the 
other in the fourth Article of the Constitution, — they 
limit and define the extent of the constitutional 
recognition of Slavery, or the ownership of slave 
property, which may be thus rendered : — " No per- 
son held to labor or service in any one of the Original 
States^ under the laws thereof, escaping into another 
of the Original States^ shall in consequence of any 
law or regulation therein, be discharged from such 
service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim 
of the party to whom such service or labor may be 
due. And there shall be neither Slavery nor invol- 
untary servitude in the said (north-west) Territory of 
the United States, otherwise than in the punishment 
of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly 
convicted : provided always, that any person escap- 
ing into the same (north-west territory) from whom 
labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the 
Original States, such fugitive may be lawfully re- 
claimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or 
her service as aforesaid." 

I regard the words the said Territory and the 
Original States as clearly referring and restricting 
the provision to the then State and Territorial 
domain of the United States. They could not have 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 25 

any reference beyond this, because, to go beyond it 
was to go beyond the reach of the National domain, 
as well as the domain of the States, to exceed the 
National as well as the State jurisdictions. Hence 
it follows, that the utmost extent to which Slavery 
was recognized, and the power of Congress could be 
exercised to protect it under the Constitution^ was 
limited to the thirteen Original States and the then 
Territorial precincts of the United States. Beyond 
that limit the Constitution did not intend to go, and 
did not, because it could not. 

Again, the power of Congress to legislate on tliis 
subject under the Constitution is derived from Arti- 
cle I., Section Sth, Subd. 17, which provides, — 

" The Congress shall have power to make all laws 
which shall be necessary and proper for carrying 
into execution the foregoing powers, and all other 
powers vested by this Constitution in the government 
of the United States, or in any department or officer 
thereof. ^^ 

The power to protect the ownership of slave 
property is not one of the enumerated " foregoing 
powers;" the latter part of this section, if any part 
of it, is the only source of the power in Congress to 
legislate on this subject, and hence its phraseology 
is important to be observed. 

The first positive enactment of Congress under 
this provision in the Constitution is in the Act of 
3* 



26 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES. 

February twelfth, 1793, called the Fugitive Slave 
Law, entitled " An act respecting fugitives from 
justice^ and persons escaping from the service of 
their masters,^'' which provides, — 

" Section III. And be it also enacted^ that when a 
person held to labor or service in any of the United 
States, or in either of the Territories on the north- 
west or south of the river Ohio, under the laws there- 
of, shall escape into any other of the said States or 
Territory^ the person to whom such labor or service 
may be due, his agent or attorney, is hereby empow- 
ered to seize or arrest such fugitive from labor, and 
to take him or her before any judge of the circuit or 
district courts of the United States, residing or being 
within the state, or before any magistrate of a county, 
city, or town corporate, wherein such seizure or arrest 
shall be made, and upon proof to the satisfaction of 
such judge or magistrate, either by oral testimony, 
or affidavit taken before and certified by a magistrate 
of any such State or Territory, that the person so seized 
or arrested, doth, under the laws of the State or Terri- 
tory from which he or she fled, owe service or labor 
to the person claiming him or her, it shall be the 
duty of such judge or magistrate to give a certificate 
thereof to such claimant, his agent or attorney, which 
shall be sufficient warrant for removing the said 
fugitive from labor, to the State or Territory from 
which he or she fled." 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 27 



" Section TV. And be it further enacted, that 
any person who shall knowingly and willingly 
obstruct or hinder such claimant, his agent or attor- 
ney, in so seizing or arresting such fugitive from 
labor, or shall rescue such fugitive from such claim- 
ant, his agent or attorney, when so arrested pursuant 
to the authority herein given or declared , or shall 
harbor or conceal such person, after notice that he 
or she was a fugitive from labor, as aforesaid, shall, 
for either of the said offenses, forfeit and pay the sum 
of five hundred dollars, which penalty may be recov- 
ered by and for the benefit of such claimant, by action 
of debt, in any court proper to try the same ; saving, 
moreover, to the person claiming such labor or serv- 
ice, the right of action for or on account of the said 
injuries, or either of them." (1 United States 
Stat, at large, 302.) 

This Act, whatever its aim, could not have an 
operation inconsistent with the provisions of the Con- 
stitution, nor could it give recognition to Slavery, or 
protection to the ownership of slave property, beyond 
the limit of the then Territorial domain and sove- 
reignty of the United States. It cannot, therefore, 
be construed as intended to protect it in places and 
under circumstances where, under the Constitutional 
provision, it could not be protected. Nor does it in 
terms (except as I shall presently notice) conflict 
with the construction which I have given to the Con- 



28 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES. 

stitutional provision ; nor had there been, saving the 
further cession of territory south of the river Ohio, 
for the common benefit, by others of the Original 
States, any enlargement of the territorial domain of 
the United States, previous to its passage, which 
would warrant us in giving it a more extended 
reference. 

The phraseology of the act is, " When a person^ 
held to labor in any of the United States^ or in either 
of the Territories on the north-west or south of the 
river Ohio, under the laws thereof, shall escape into 
any other of the said States or Territories^ the person 
to whom such service is due," &c. The same 
restrictive terms are here used as in the Ordinance 
of 1787, or referred to as defining and limiting the 
protective recognition of the law to the case of a per- 
son who is held under an existing servitude in any 
of the United States or in the Territory of the United 
States, and escaping into any other one of the same 
States, or specified Territory. The words in any of 
the United States clearly refer to the States then 
composing the Sovereignty called the United States. 
And the Territory intended to be covered by the pro- 
vision is as clearly defined and specified by the words 
limiting it to the Territory then belonging to the 
United States, and described as lying north-west and 
south of the river Ohio. And the limitation is still 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 29 

farther restricted by the words, " escaping into any 
other of the said states^ or (said) territory ."^^ 

The slave property, therefore, the ownership of 
which was designed to be recognized and protected 
by this law of Congress, must be in a person owing 
service in any one of the original States^ under the 
laws thereof, and escaping therefrom into any other 
of the said Original States, or into either of the said 
Territories. Or, (going beyond the constitutional 
provision,) of a person owing service in either of the 
said Territories, under the laws thereof, (in conflict 
witK the Ordinance of 1787 as to the North-West 
Territory,) and escaping into any one of the said 
Original States, or into the other of the^ said Terri- 
tories. 

Allowing this act to be in strict conformity with 
the Constitution and the Ordinance of 1787, (which 
it evidently is not, of which hereafter,) we have here 
the full and only extent of the Constitutional power 
in Congress to recognize Slavery and to protect the 
ownership of slave property, by providing for and 
enforcing its reclamation. It can go no farther, not 
only because the very terms used to define its juris- 
diction upon the subject limit it as to place and cir- 
cumstances, but also because it comprehended the 
entire State and Territorial domain of the then 
United States. Beyond this, there was not and there 
could not have been, any claim or pretense that its 



30 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

jurisdiction extended, or was intended to reach, by 
any possible construction. 

III. 

Such was the nature and such was the utmost ex- 
tent of the national recognition given to Slavery in 
the United States under the Constitution. The ques- 
tion of its recognition might well have been, and was, a 
question of National interest and importance, because 
it existed in every one of the then States. But it was 
merely the recognition of an existing ownership of 
slave property as to the then existing States, (see Con- 
stitution, Art. I., Sec. IX.,) although it might indeed 
include the^ ownership of all slave property imported 
into any one of them prior to the year 1808. But it 
was not a recognition of Slavery itself as a permanent 
National or State institution. It was a question of 
protection merely, and not a question of increase or 
extension. The question of its extension, if it had 
been at all seriously agitated, either in or out of Con- 
gress, in the legislatures or among the people of the 
States, was definitively settled by the political com- 
pact of the Ordinance of 1787 ; and lastingly so, it 
would seem, when that compact was made and 
declared to be in conformity with the Constitution. 

If, however, the Constitution is to be regarded as 
having abrogated that compact, and taken to be the 
sole guide in its own construction on this subject, 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 31 

there can be no question but that the act of 1793 
contravenes the constitutional provision for the 
reclamation of fugitives from service in two particu- 
lars, while it certainly is in conflict with the Ordi- 
nance of 1787. 

First. It extends the right of reclamation of 
slave property over Territory south of the river Ohio, 
thereby embracing territory not a part of the national 
domain at the time of the adoption of the Constitu- 
tion, and therefore not reached by the strict consti- 
tutional provision. And — 

Second. It recognizes the ownership of slave 
property in the Territories under the laws thereof^ 
and provides for its recaption when escaped from any 
one such Territory into any State, or other such Terri- 
tory of the United States. In other words it makes 
the Territories referred to, both north-west and south 
of the river Ohio, places of recognized ownership 
and escape as well as places of refuge and reclama- 
tion, clearly in conflict with the very letter as well as 
the spirit of both the Ordinance and the^Constitution. 

But, it may be said, and it was undoubtedly so, 
that the law of 1793 was designed to protect the 
ownership of slave property in territory south of the 
river Ohio, which was a part of some of the southern 
States, original members of the Union, and which 
was by them ceded to the United States for the com- 
mon benefit, — that slavery was already in existence 



32 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 



there, and that the cession was made with the 
express reservation, or condition, that Congress 
should not pass any act of emancipation in reference 
thereto, but on the contrary should recognize and 
protect Slavery therein, in the same manner as if no 
cession had been made and as if the said Territory 
was still a part of the original State. I have no 
hesitation in conceding this to have been the com- 
pact of cession, and the act in question to have been 
made, in part, in pursuance of it. Still, the act 
was one of protection in the existing oivnership of 
slave property, and not for the extension of Slavery. 
It still recognized and protected it only within the 
National or State domain, belonging to the original 
States in severalty, or as United States in common, 
at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. 

The question, therefore, again recurs, how far does 
the act of 1793 constitutionally recognize and protect 
the ownership of slave property ? Certainly it cannot 
go beyond the limit prescribed by the Constitution. 
In its very terms it is restricted to persons owing 
service or labor in any of the said United States, that 
is, in any one of the then existing or Original 
States. That is, the States which were parties to 
the original union under the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, to the permanent union under the Con- 
federation, and to the final compact of perpetual 
union under the Constitution. Their common 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 33 

union, their common trials, their common sacrifices, 
and their common labors, through all these transi- 
tions, were the basis of their special, and peculiar, 
and exclusive claim to be called the Original States^ 
as well as their special and exclusive title to the 
protection guaranteed to them in this common heri- 
tage of property in human flesh and bones 1 And 
they were jealous, as it were, that it should be special 
and exclusive ; and that no Colony on the continent, 
coming into the Union perchance after all this 
achievement, without having participated in the com- 
mon conflict for independence, should receive the 
like special privilege of holding human beings in 
bondage, in a land so laboriously consecrated to 
freedom. 

Hence the specialty of these guarantees and 
enactments. Hence, if this law of 1793 purports to 
have been made in pursuance of any power vested 
in Congress by this Constitution, it is constitutional 
only so far as its jurisdiction is confined to the letter 
and the reach of the constitutional provision. If 
that provision was limited to the Original States, as 
it certainly was, then this act cannot go beyond the 
limit of the original National and State domain. So 
far forth as it does, it becomes a mere act of Congress, 
based on no authority for it in the Constitution, and 
is therefore to that extent void in law. 

But again, what was the purpose of this act ? 
4 



34 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 



It was, mainly, to enforce the constitutional right of 
reclamation, and to prescribe the mode of procedure 
in procuring its enforcement on behalf of the claim- 
ant. It was not necessary in doing this to go be- 
yond the constitutional provision, or to extend the 
right of reclamation to places and circumstances of 
ownership or refuge not contemplated by the Consti- 
tution, and expressly stipulated against by the Ordi- 
nance of 1787. Nor do I think it was the intention 
of Congress to do so ; else they would have made 
the phraseology of the act to conform to that inten- 
tion. They would have said : — 

" Any person held to service or labor in any of the 
United States, or in any of the Territories thereof," — 
instead of saying: when a person held to labor 
or service (as contemplated in the Constitution) shall 
escape, — the person to whom such service is due 
may seize, — evidently looking more to the remedy 
of the claimant than to any extension of the right 
of reclamation in itself. 

Hence again, I conclude that the ownership of 
slave property is not, and was not designed to be, 
recognized or protected under the Constitution, 
beyond the precincts of the thirteen Original States, 
and the Territorial domain belonging to the United 
States at the time of its adoption. That the consti- 
tutional provision does not recognize or protect it 
even in the National Territorial domain then belong- 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 35 

ing to the United Statesj and that it cannot be con- 
stitutionally recognized or protected even there, by 
any law of Congress, if the Constitution is to be 
regarded as having abrogated the political compact 
contained in the Ordinance of 1787. The only 
National protective recognition given to the owner- 
ship of slave property in the Territorial domain of 
the United States, by providing for its reclama- 
tion in said territory, was guaranteed by that Ordi- 
nance. If that compact was superseded or annulled 
by the later compact of the Constitution ; if the 
two do not co-exist in such wise as to form one 
national compact on the subject, — then the provision 
as contained in the Constitution becomes the sole 
national compact in reference to it, and there is no 
power in Congress under the Constitution to extend 
the right of reclamation beyond that provision. Any 
law for the enforcement of it beyond that limit 
becomes unconstitutional and void. 

Still it must be admitted that there were, and are, 
good and substantial reasons, reasons founded in 
equity and good conscience, why the constitutional 
provision should be, and has been, extended to the 
recognition of Slavery and to the protection of the 
ownership of slave property, in States formed out of 
the Territorial domain belonging to the United States 
previous to the adoption of the Constitution; or 
which wa^ a part of any one of the Original States, and 



36 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

erected into a State after its adoption. The Consti- 
tution provides for the admission of such new States 
into the Union. 

Article TV., Sec. 3. " New States may be admit- 
ted, by the Congress, into this Union ; but no new 
State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdic- 
tion of any other State ; nor any State formed by 
the junction of two or more States, without the con- 
sent of the Legislatures of the States concerned, as 
well as of the Congress.'^ 

But this provision clearly refers only to new States 
formed out of the then existing Territorial domain 
of the United States, or out of the then Territorial 
domain of some one or more of the then existing 
Original States, whether before or after its cession to 
the United States. This is evident from the fact 
that there was no other source from which a ne\V 
State could originate. The provision could not have 
any wider reference. Every other political commu- 
nity on the continent of North America was then a 
Colony of some Foreign Power, owing allegiance to 
some Foreign Potentate, with which the United 
States were at peace. Treaties of amity and com- 
merce existed between them : and to suppose that 
this provision of the Constitution contemplated any 
application of any such colony for admission into this 
Union as an Independent State, or that it could 
have any such possible reference or intention, is to 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 37 

suppose that the framers of it were guilty of the 
grossest treachery and deceit toward those powers 
with which they professed and avowed themselves to 
be at amity. Such duplicity and baseness were not 
a characteristic of our revolutionary fathers. They 
were straight-forward, out-spoken, honorable men, 
and had they intended any such thing they would 
have said : — 

" Any Colony now existing on the Continent of 
North America, may be admitted by the Congress 
into this Union," etc. Such would have been their 
language, for such was their way of speaking out their 
intentions. In the Articles of Confederation they 
had said : — 

Article XI. Canada acceding to this Confedera- 
tion, and joining in the ?neasures of the United 
States, shall be admitted into and entitled to all the 
advantages of this Union. But no other Colony 
shall be admitted into the same, unless such admis- 
sion be agreed to by nine States. 

Does not this provision demojistrate the fact as 
well as the reasonableness of the restriction which 
we put upon the admission of new States into this 
Union ? There were privileges and benefits in the 
Union which were not to be gratuitously distributed 
or given away. There were advantages to be pur- 
chased only by " joining in the measures of the United 

States," so called, to achieve their Independence. 

4* 



38 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 



Hence those Colonies which had neglected to join in 
those measures wevQ excluded, intentionally excluded 
from its benefits, forever thereafter, and no provision 
was contemplated for their after admission, by the fra- 
mers of the Constitution. 

Yet it was just and equitable that the people 
inhabiting in the then Territorial domain of the 
United States, whether State or National, which 
should thereafter seek admission into the Federal 
Union ,as one of the brotherhood of States, should 
receive the full benefit of the provisions in the Con- 
stitution which recognized Slavery and protected the 
ownership of slave property in the precincts of the 
Original States, of which they were originally a 
part. It was just and right, having joined in the 
measures of the United States during their revolu- 
tionary struggle, that they should not be deprived of 
any of the advantages accorded to the Original States 
under the Constitution, when any one of them came 
to be " received and admitted into this Union as a 
new and entire member of the United States of 
America." It was also just and right that the pro- 
visions of the political compact contained in the 
Ordinance of 1787, to which they also were parties, 
should be applied to protect them in their ownership 
of slave property escaped into any one of the said 
Territories of the United States. 

But more than this, when the Revolutionary 



ITS NATIONAL KECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 39 

Congress appealed to the Colonies to cede this Terri- 
tory for the common benefit of such of them as 
should become members of the Federal Fraternity 
of States, in order to promote the ratification of the 
Articles of Confederation, "it pledged itself, that if 
the lands were ceded as recommended, they should 
be disposed of for tlie common benefit of the United 
States, and be settled and formed into distinct 
Republican States, which should become members of 
the Federal Union, and have the same rights of sove- 
reignty, freedom, and independence, as the other 
States."* Hence originated this provision in the Con- 
stitution for the admission of New States. It was 
but carrying out this pledge of the Revolutionary 
Congress made before the establishment of the Union 
under the Confederation. See Rickey's Constitu- 
tion, pp. 421, 422. Journals of Congress, 1780. 

Hence it is, that we must concede the right of 
reclamation, and the power of Congress to enforce 
it, in the Original States, and in the New States 
formed out of the Original Territorial domain of 
the United States, although it is not provided for in 
the strict letter of the Constitution. Hence also we 
concede the right of representation apportioned on 
the slave population in such New States. 

But no like reason can be given for the recogni- 
tion or protection of Slavery beyond those limits. 



* See Dred Scott case, p. 39. 



40 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

On the contrary, everything, even to the rigid letter 
and the spirit of the Constitution, is against it. 
When the recognition given to Slavery or the pro- 
tection guaranteed to the ownership of slave property 
reaches beyond the limits of the Territorial domain 
comprehended within the original precincts of the 
Thirteen Original States, it reaches beyond the con- 
stitutional limit ; it reaches beyond all equitable and 
just claims to a protection derived under the Consti- 
tution, or under the Ordinance of 1787, or under the 
Law of 1793. It becomes an enactment for the 
extension of Slavery, and there is no authority for it 
in either. 

IV. 

I repeat, the Constitutional theory of the national 
recognition of Slavery was a theory of restriction. It 
had its first development in the Ordinance of 1787, 
prohibiting it in the Territory North- West of the river 
Ohio. It was further avowed in the restrictive 
provision of the Constitution itself, and in the act 
declaring the Ordinance to be in conformity with 
the Constitution. And whenever opportunity offer- 
ed, in consistence with those peculiar relations and 
obligations which existed between the Original States 
which had "joined in the measures of the United 
States" during the Revolution, the National Le- 
gislature prohibited and restrained its extension 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 41 

except only by its natural increase. While it recog- 
nized and protected the existing ownership of slave 
property within the prescribed limits, provided such 
ownership was the fruit of any importation made 
previous to the year 1808, it deprecated and con- 
demned Slavery itself. Else what means the act of 
March twenty-second, 1794 ? entitled — 

An act to prohibit the carrying on the Slave Trade 
from the United States to any Foreign place or 
Country. Which provides, — 

"Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and 
House of Representatives in Congress assembled^ 
That no citizen of the United States, or Foreigner? 
or any other person coming into or residing within 
the same, shall, for himself, or any other person 
whatsoever, either as. master, factor, or owner, build, 
fit, equip, load, or otherwise prepare any ship or 
vessel, within any port or place of the said United 
States ; nor shall cause any ship or vessel to sail from 
any port or place within the same, for the purpose of 
carrying on any trade or traffic in slaves, to any 
foreign country, or for the purpose of procuring from 
any foreign kingdom, place, or country, the inhabit- 
ants of such kingdom, place, or country, to be trans- 
ferred to any foreign country, port, or place, whatso- 
ever, to be sold or disposed of as slaves ; and if any 
ship or vessel shall be so fitted out as aforesaid, for 
the said purposes, or shall be caused to sail so as 



42 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

aforesaid, every such ship or vessel, her tackle, 
furniture, apparel, and other appurtenances, shall 
be forfeited to the United States ; and shall be liable 
to be seized, prosecuted, and condemned, in any of 
the Circuit Courts, or District Courts, for the district 
where the said ship or vessel may be found and 
seized, as aforesaid." 

Was not this act a decided condemnation of Slav- 
ery and the Slave Trade ? And what can be more 
expressive on this point than the act of May tenth, 
1800 ? entitled An act in addition to the act entitled 
an act to prohibit the carrying on the Slave Trade 
from the United States to any Foreign place or 
Country ; and which provides, — 

" Section 1. Be it enacted^ etc.^ That it shall be 
unlawful for any citizen of the United States, or 
other person residing within the United States, 
directly or indirectly to hold, or to have any right or 
property in any vessel employed or made use of in 
the transportation or cai*rying of slaves from one 
Foreign country or place to another ; and any right 
or property belonging as aforesaid, shall be forfeited, 
and may be libelled and condemned for the use of 
the person who shall sue for the same ; and such 
person transgressing the prohibition aforesaid, shall 
also forfeit and pay a sum of money equal to double 
the value of the right or property in such vessel, 
which he held, as aforesaid ; and shall also forfeit a 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 43 



sum of money equal to double the value of the 
interest which he may have had in the slaves, which, 
at any time, have been transported and carried in 
such vessel, after the passing of this act, and against 
the form thereof." 2 U. S. Stat, at large, 70. 

Was not this act aimed against the extension of 
Slavery ? Was it not expressive of a severe deter- 
mination to put an end to a traffic which was becom- 
ing a too prolific source of its increase in the United 
States, and against which the public sentiment of 
the nation was already at war ? What else, again, 
originated the act of February twenty-eighth, 1803 ? 
entitled An act to prevent the importation of certain 
persons into certain States, where, by the laws 
thereof, their admission is prohibited. Which pro- 
vided that "after April first, 1803, no importation 
of slaves should be made into any port or place of 
the United States, which port or place shall be situ- 
ated in any State, which has by law prohibited, or 
shall prohibit, such importation or admission." 2 
U. S. Stat, at large, 205. 

Why this coming up of the power of the National 
Sovereignty to aid and to encourage the individual 
state in its efforts to prevent the extension, and if 
possible the increase, of Slavery within its limits? 
What is it if not a condemnation of Slavery, and 
evidence of an intention to put an end to its exten- 
sion beyond the natural increase in those states where 



44 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

it then existed, and might, perchance, thereafter con- 
tinue to exist ? 

Why, again, was it that in May, 1800, in the " Act 
to divide the Territory of the United States North- 
West of the river Ohio into two separate districts, 
thereby establishing the Indiana Territory, a govern- 
ment was established over it " in all respects similar 
to that provided by the Ordinance of 1787," and 
declaring "the inhabitants to be entitled to enjoy all 
and singular the rights, privileges, and advantages 
guaranteed and secured to the people by the said 
Ordinance, one of which was the exclusion of Slavery ? 

But if anything more were wanting to settle, this 
question, we have it still more decisively in the act 
of March second, 1807, entitled An Act to prohibit 
the importation of slaves into any port or place with- 
in the jurisdiction of the United States, from and 
after the first day of January one thousand eight 
hundred and eight, which provides, — 

" Section I. Be it enacted by the Senate and House 
of Representatives of the United States of America 
in Congress assembled, That from and after the 
first day of January one thousand eight hundred and 
eight, it shall not be lawful to import, or bring into 
the United States, or the territory thereof, from any 
foreign kingdom, place, or country, any negro, mu- 
latto, or person of color, with intent to hold, sell, or 
dispose of such negro, mulatto or person of color, as 



I 
ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 45 



a slave, or to be held to service or labor." 2 U. S, 
Stat, at large, 426. 
So also we have the later Act of April twentieth, 

1818, made in addition to the Act of March second, 
1807, and prohibiting the importation of colored per- 
sons as slaves, and also the Act of March third, 

1819, made in addition to the Act prohibiting the 
Slave Trade ; wherein and whereby the President of 
the United States is authorized and empowered "to 
cause any of the armed vessels of the United States 
to be employed to cruise on any of the coasts of the 
United States, or Territories thereof, or of the coasts 
of Africa, or elsewhere, where he may judge attempts 
may be made to carry on the Slave Trade, by citizens 
or residents of the United States, in contravention 
of the Acts of Congress prohibiting the same." 
And to invest the commanders of said cruising ves- 
sels with power to seize and take the same. 3 U. S, 
Stat, at large, 533. 

So also the Act of May fifteenth, 1820, entitled 
"An Act to continue in force An Act to protect the 
commerce of the United States, and to punish the 
crime of Piracy;" which makes the forcibly "con- 
fining, detaining, or aiding to confine or detain any 
negro or midatto person not a slave, on board of any 
ship or vessel with intent to make such person a 
slave," piracy, and punishable with death. 3 U. S. 
Stat, at large, GOO. 
5 



46 . SLAVERY IX THE UNITED STATES, 

Are not all these enactments demonstrations that 
in the view of the men of that clay, the recognition 
given to Slavery and the ownership of slave property 
in the United States, by the National Sovereignty, 
was restrictive and not intended to admit its lawfnl 
existence, or to encourage, or to promote its exten- 
sion, beyond the natural increase of an already exist- 
ing slave population ? 

Y. 

I have thus pointed out the nature and extent of 
the recognition given to Slavery in the United States 
by the National Sovereignty, under the Cpnstitution. 
I have shown, I think conclusively, that the recogni- 
tion thus given to it and the protection thus guaranteed 
to the ownership of slave property was originally 
based on the theory of its restriction, and not of its 
enlargement ; of the suppression and not the exten- 
sion of Slavery itself. That the utmost limit of its 
protective recognition was comprehended within the 
precincts of the Thirteen Original States, and the 
Territorial domain belonging to the United States 
when the Constitution was adopted. I therefore call 
this the first great National era of Slavery in this 
country. Whatever agitations it may have occa- 
sioned, whatever conflicts it may have originated 
durmg this era, either in or out of Congress, were 
originated withui the limits specified, and determined 
by a reference to these admitted constitutional and 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 47 

equitable powers of the National Legislature over it, 
in the given circumstances. 

I call this also the Constitutional limit to its recog- 
nition and protection by the National Sovereignty. 
But in this I do not mean to say, or affirm, that it 
may not be, or is not, otherwise recognized and pro- 
tected, or that in its after extension beyond this limit 
it exists without any efficient or protective recogni- 
tion. And this brings me to consider the true basis 
of its recognition beyond that derived under the 
Constitution. This, I maintain, originates in a 
source outside of the Constitution. In the opening 
of a new, a more interesting, and a more exciting 
era in our history on this subject of slavery. An 
era itself originating in a contingency not anticipated 
by the framers of the Constitution ; not anticipated 
by the States, or the people of the States which rati- 
fied it ; not anticipated by the first, the second, or 
even the third Congress ; not anticipated by Wash- 
ington, or by Adams, or by Jefferson; not anticipated 
by any of the prominent and far-seeing statesmen 
of that early day, and consequently not provided 
for in the Constitution. That contingency was, the 
extenglon of the National domain and Sovereignty 
of the United States beyond the constitutional limit, 
by the acquisition of Foreign Territory. 

The purchase of " the Domain and Sovereignty of 
the Louisiana Territory, its dependencies, and the 



48 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

Islands adjacent," from France in 1803, was an addi- 
tion to the domain and jurisdiction of the United 
States not anticipated by its framers,and not provided 
for by the Constitution. It has ah^eady been observed 
that the Articles of Confederation provided for the 
admission of Canada and other Colonies on the 
American Continent, into the Confederacy. But no 
such or similar provision is found in the Constitu- 
tion. The omission was not unintentional. It was 
undoubtedly designed to restrict the Union under 
this Constitution to the Colonies which had origin- 
ally and all along acceded to the League of Union 
under the Martial Manifesto, and under the Declara- 
tion of Independence, and to the Federal Alliance 
under the Confederation ; and had joined in the 
measures of the United States in achieving their 
Independence. To these, called in the favorite and 
exclusive phraseology of the framers of the Consti- 
tution the Original States, were reserved all the 
advantages of the Confederated Union ; and all the 
peculiar privileges, guarantees and stipulations con- 
tained in the political Compact of the Ordinance of 
1787, and in the Compact of the Constitution, on 
the subject of Slavery ; which, in the same sense and 
to the same extent^ could not be conceded to any 
otlxer. Theirs was the privilege of transporting 
their slave property " from any port or place in one 
State to any port or place in another State." Theirs 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 49 

was the privilege of a representation in Congress 
apportioned on a slave population. Theirs the privi- 
lege of reclaiming their slave property escaping into 
any other State, or Territory, of the United States. 
And these advantages were exclusively guaranteed to 
them under the Constitution, and there is no provis- 
ion in it for their further extension. 

True, the Constitution provided for the admission 
of New States into the Union, but this, as I have 
shown, and shall hereafter demonstrate, was a pro- 
vision peculiarly pointing to tlie original National 
and State domain, and limited precisely to Territory 
within the then precincts of the National Sovereignty. 

True, Congress had power, under the Constitution, 
" to make all needful rules and regulations respect- 
ing the Territory, or other property, belonging to the 
United States." But this again, was within the 
limits specilied, for it certainly could not refer to 
Territory not then belonging to the United States. 

The purchase of foreign Territory was a new com- 
pact of the National Sovereignty, made independently 
of any provision in the Constitution, and not a pur- 
chase under or l>y virtue of any warrant for it in the 
^Constitution. Nor can it be claimed that the consti- 
tutional provision was intended to recognize Slavery 
or jH-otect the ownership of slave-property, anywhere 
and everywhere. Congress could not thus make itself 
a partner in, or the protector of, a traffic which the 
5* 



50 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

framers of the Constitution had condemned and pro- 
hibited by the severest penalties, by simply buying up 
an entire new Sovereignty overrun with Slaves and 
Slavery ; and that too a Sovereignty from which they 
had already interdicted the importation of slaves 
into the United States. *' 

The Compact of the Constitution was, in every 
sense, and in all senses of it, a compact for freedom 
and not for Slavery. It did not in any sense recog- 
nize Slavery itself. It only recognized the right of 
service derived under an existing oivyiership of slave 
property. And while it guaranteed its protection to 
those who, with the inherited weight of a slave prop- 
erty on their shoulders, had " borne the heat and 
burden of the day" of the Revolution, it did not 
intend to recognize the same claim to its protection 
in other and alien Colonies which had stood aloof 
from the struggle, even if perchance they might 
thereafter come within the pale of its political asso- 
ciation and sovereign jurisdiction. I say it did not 
intend it, because firsts no such accession to the 
Union could thereafter be made under circumstan- 
ces entitling the new member to claim it; and 
second^ because no such accession was then either 
anticipated or desired. 

This protective recognition of the ownership of 
Slave property, I repeat, was an exception from the 
great rule of freedom, made in favor of the Original 
States, because they had " joined in the measures of 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 51 

the United States" in achieving their National Sover- 
eignty. Canada had not joined in those measures ; 
other Colonies had not joined in those measures, and 
therefore all -were excluded from the common bene- 
fits of the achievement ; and none but the Original 
States, or States formed out of them, were suffered 
to participate in the peculiar privileges given to the 
ownership of Slave- property within the limits, for 
these very peculiar reasons. 

Call Slavery a curse if you will, still they must 
take the curse if they would have the blessing of 
Independence. They could not throw it back upon 
the Parent State, whose Sovereignty over them they 
liad now repudiated. The inheritance was theirs, 
tliey had assumed the burden of it, and they must 
make the best of the incumbrance ; the best for 
themselves, the best for freedom, the best for human- 
ity. They did so ; and thus it stood so far as the 
Constitutional recognition of it was concerned until 
the subsequent acquisition of the Louisiana Ter- 
ritory gave rise to the question as to the power of 
Congress to extend Slavery under the Constitu- 
tion. The purchase, in itself, was nothing more or 
less than a compact between the United States as a 
Sovereignty, and France as another Sovereignty, for 
the conveyance of the said Territory to the former. 
And it was, as I have said, a compact outside and 
independent of the Constitution. So far as the mere 



52 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

acquisition of Territory was concerned, it presented 
no difficulty. When the bargain was concluded and 
the transfer of title was actually made, it came under 
the jurisdiction of the National Sovereignty of the 
United States, subject to its government and control. 
It brought with it, however, a subject the very exist- 
ence of which was in conflict with the Spirit of the 
Constitution, and the existing laws of the United 
States, made in pursuance of it : and that was 
Slavery ; which involved the recognition of it be- 
yond the constitutional limit, and within the prohi- 
bitions of the Laws of the United States. 

On the thirty-first day of October, 1803, an act 
was passed by Congress to enable the President of 
the United States to take possession of the Territory 
ceded by France to the United States by the treaty 
concluded at Paris on the thirtieth of April last ; 
and for the Temporary Government thereof." 2. 
U. S. Stat, at Large, p. 245. 

On the twenty-sixth day of March, 1804, an act 
was passed, " Erecting Louisiana into two Territo- 
ries, and providing for the temporary government 
thereof." Ibid., 283. 

This act designated the lands lying South of the 
Mississippi Territory as the Territory of Orleans; 
while the other portion was designated the District 
of Louisiana, and the government of it was placed 
under the Governor and Judges of the Indiana Ter- 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 53 

ritory, one of the Districts into which the Territory 
North-West of the River Ohio had been distributed. 
This act also prohibited the importation or bringing 
of Slaves into the said Territory from any port or 
place luithout the United States. It also prohibited 
the importation or transportation of Slaves into the 
said Territory, /ro7?i any port or place in the United 
States, which were brought into the United States 
after May first, 1789. And further provided, that 
no Slave " should be, directly or indirectly, intro- 
duced into said Territory except by a Citizen of the 
United States, removing therein for actual settle- 
ment, and being, at the time, a hona-Jide owner of 
such Slave or Slaves." In case any Slave or Slaves 
were brought into the said Territory, in violation of 
these provisions, or either of them, it was provided, 
that such Slave or Slaves should " thereupon he enti- 
tled to and receive his or her freedom.^'' 

Thus, on the very threshold of taking possession 
of this newly acquired Territory, Congress emphat- 
ically declares that it was not the intention of the 
National Sovereignty to promote the extension of 
Slavery. On the contrary, it announces the senti- 
ment of the Government and the people of the Uni- 
ted States to be against its extension. Slavery, 
however, had already obtained in some portions 
of this vast domain, and the people inhabiting therein 
claimed protection in the ownership of their Slave- 



54 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

property under the third Article of the Convention 
with France, which provided, 

" The inhabitants of the ceded Territory shall be 
incorporated into the Union of the United States, 
and admitted as soon as possible according to the 
principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoy- 
ment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities 
of citizens of the United States ; and in the mean 
time they shall he protected in the free enjoyment of 
their liberty, property^ and the religion which they 
profess." 

As this provision in the Convention, or Treaty, 
was made the basis of opposition to the restrictions 
imposed upon Slavery in this Territory, it may be 
well, in passing, to note its phraseology. It was 
claimed that the stipulation guaranteed the recogni- 
tion and protection of Slavery. The words are, " the 
inhabitants oi the ceded Territory shall be protected," 
etc. Now who were the inhabitants ? Not the free 
citizens ov free inhabitants, or the white inhabitants, 
but the inhabitants, without any distinction as to 
color, caste, or condition, shall be thus incorporated 
into the Union, and admitted to the enjoyment of all 
the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of 
the United States. In the mean time, that is, before 
they become thus incorporated, and until they are 
thus incorporated, they, that is, the inhabitants of 
the ceded Territory, "shall be protected" both by 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 55 

the United States and France, — " in the free enjoy- 
ment of their liberty^ property, and the religion they 
profess." 

So far from guaranteeing protection to Slavery, 
the stipulation does not even recognize its distinct- 
tive existence : and if the inhabitants of the Terri- 
tory, without exception or qualification, were to be 
protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, why 
not the slaves ? 

But conceding that the stipulation was intended 
to protect the ownership of slave property in the said 
Territory, and that it bound the United States to 
recognize and protect it there, it evidently did not 
do so by virtue of any provision in the Constitution, 
or beyond the time when the said Territory should 
be incorporated into the Union. Nor did the idea 
of its incorporation into the Union, refer to its being 
erected into a State and becoming in this wise a 
member of the Federal body politic. It was incor- 
porated into the Union for all the purposes specified, 
and its inhabitants were admitted " as soon as pos- 
sible according to the principles of the Federal 
Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, 
advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United 
States," the moment the United States took posses- 
sion, assumed jurisdiction, and established a govern- 
ment over it. There could be no just claim or 
pretence that the said Territory, or any portion of it. 



56 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

should be admitted into the Union as a State, per 
force of the stipulation contained in the Convention 
with France. As soon as it was incorporated into 
and became a part of the Territorial domain of the 
United States, the stipulation with France was fully 
performed, and at an end. It became thenceforth 
subject exclusively to the Sovereignty of the United 
States. 

Nor could it, or any portion of it, be admitted into 
the Union as a State, per force of any provision in 
the Constitution. Because, as I have shown, there 
was no provision in the Constitution which contem- 
plated the purchase of Foreign Territory, or the 
creation of New States out of Foreign Territory. 

Nor, hence, could Slavery be recognized and pro- 
tected there per force of any provision in the Con- 
stitution. Because, again, there was no protection 
guaranteed to Slavery by the Constitution beyond 
its own original jurisdiction, or the obligation to 
protect it in the Original States and Territory. But 
I do not say, or mean to intimate, that the States 
and people then composing the National Sovereignty 
called the United States, could not make a compact 
for the recognition of Slavery and the protection of 
the ownership of Slave property in the newly acquired 
Territory, iyidependently of the Constitution. And 
•here is the very gist of the controversy, the very 
oversight of our day. An existing mercantile firm 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 57 

may stipulate with a clerk of the concern to admit 
him into the copartnership as a new and entire 
member thereof, on terms and conditions entirely- 
distinct from, and independent of, the original 
articles between themselves ; at the same time 
extending to him, or reserving to themselves exclu- 
sively, any peculiar advantages of those original 
articles. So here ; it is a new compact between the 
National Sovereignty and the people of the newly 
acquired Territory, for their admission into the 
, Union as an independent State. As inhabitants of 
its Territorial domain they are subjects of the Na- 
tional Sovereignty ; and are in no sense sovereign, or 
independent of it, except so far as the Congressional 
^Act establishing the Territorial government may vest 
them with a portion of its sovereignty. And while 
it may convey to them so much of its sovereignty as is 
necessary to build up and sustain their local govern- 
ment and institutions, and may guarantee to them 
protection in the ownership of their Slave-property, 
such compact cannot base itself upon any provision 
in the Constitution, nor do they thereby become 
independent of its supremacy. Whether made in the 
organization of a Territorial Government, or by an 
Act of admission into the Union as a State, it is a 
compact independent of the Constitution. The new 
Sovereignty is acting in its Sovereign capacity and 
6 



68 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, • 

not under the Constitution. But of this more par- 
ticularly hereafter. 

VI. 

On the third day of March, 1805, Congress passed 
an Act entitled " An Act further to provide for the 
government of The District of Louisiana,^^ declar- 
ing that " all that part of the country ceded by 
France to the United States under the general name 
of Louisiana, which by the Act of 1804 was erected 
into a separate District, to be called The District of 
Louisiana, shall henceforth be known and desig- 
nated by the name and title of The Territory/ of 
Louisiana, the government whereof is organized as 
follows," &c. 

On the twentieth of February, 1811, an Act was 
passed — " To enable the people of the Territory of 
Orleans to form a Constitution and State govern- 
ment, and for the admission of such State into the 
Union on an equal footing with the Original States, 
and for other purposes " — 2 U. S. Stat, at Larg-e, 
p. 648, which was followed on the eighth of April, 
1812, by an Act entitled " An Act for the admission 
of the State of Louisiana (the Territory of Orleans) 
into the Union, and to extend the Laws of the Uni- 
ted States to said State. 

On the fourth of June, 1812, an Act was passed 
entitled " An Act providing for the government of 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 59 

The Territory of Missouri,^'' which enacted that 
" The Territory heretofore called Louisiana shall 
hereafter be called Missouri,^'' — over which a tempo- 
rary government was established by the same Act. 

Mississippi was admitted into the Union as a Slave 
State, on the tenth day of December, 1817, her con- 
stitution being declared by Congress to be " Repub- 
lican, and in conformity with the principles of the 
Articles of Compact between the Original States and 
the people and States of the Territory North- West 
of the River Ohio." Thus recognizing the existing 
integrity of the Ordinance of 1787. 

The phraseology of the resolution of admission 
declared — " that the State of Mississippi shall be 
one, and is hereby declared to be one of the United 
States of America, and admitted into the Union on 
an equal footing with the Original States, in all 
respects whatever." 

The Eastern part of this Territory had previously 
been erected into a separate Territory under the 
name of Alabama, by Act of Congress, March third, 
1817. The whole of the Mississippi Territory was a 
part of the Original States of South Carolina and 
Georgia, and was by them ceded to the United 
States for the common benefit. Alabama was ad- 
mitted into the Union, December fourteenth, 1819. 

The States erected out of the North- West Terri- 



60 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

tory were, Ohio, admitted April 30th, 1802 ; Indiana, 
Dec. 11th, 1816 ; Illinois, Dec. 3d, 1818. 

The question of Slavery was not materially dis- 
cussed upon the admission of any of those States 
into the Union, which were formed out of Territory 
comprehended within the precincts of the United 
States at the adoption of the Constitution. Still, it 
must be observed, that in the Compact for their 
admission, the integrity of the Articles contained in 
the Ordinance of 1787 was stipulated /as a condition 
precedent to their admission. 

Louisiana was the first State formed out of the 
Territory ceded by France to the United States. . 
The existence of Slavery within her limits was so 
general that her admission into the Union as a Slave 
State did not give rise to any particular controversy 
with reference to it ; And it must be admitted that 
with even this addition to its numerical strength in 
the United States, a great deal had been accom- 
plished in the way of suppressing Slavery generally, 
by the purchase of this Territory. It was thus 
brought under the Act prohibiting the Slave Trade, 
as well as other restrictive laws of the United States 
in reference to it. In this view alone, the evil of its 
extension if it can properly be called an extension 
of it, was more than counterbalanced by the prohi- 
bitions and restraints to which it became subject 
under the jurisdiction of the United States. The 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 61 

exaction that her laws, judicial proceedings, and 
records, should be in the same language used in the 
United States, might well be regarded as a sufficient 
equivalent for the recognition given to Slavery, and 
the protection guaranteed to the ownership of her 
Slave property, under the Laws of the United States. 
All this, however, be it remembered, was the subject 
of a new compact between the proposed State of 
Louisiana and the National Sovereignty. It could 
not be claimed or conceded under the Constitution. 



CHAPTER II. 

SLAVERY OUTSIDE OF THE CONSTITUTION. 
I. 

The Confederation was a compact between the 
Colonies as States claiming an independence of each 
other as well as of Great Britain. The Constitution 
was a compact between the people of the United 
States claiming in themselves a Sovereignty inde- 
pendent both of the State and Federal Supremacy. 
Hence the great defect of the Confederation was, that 
the Sovereignty wrested from Great Britain was 
given to the States in severalty, while no provision 

was made for a National Government of supreme 
6* 



62 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

authority and general jurisdiction. The Constitu- 
tion was designed to remedy this defect, and was 
based on the theory of an existing National Sover- 
eignty in the people of the Thirteen Original States, 
acquired by conquest from Great Britain, and limited 
in its jurisdiction and supremacy only by the pre- 
cincts described in the Definitive Treaty executed 
between the Commissioners of the two nations at 
Paris, September third, 1783. 

The Constitutional National Sovereignty of The 
United States, therefore, was in the Confederacy 
composed of the people of those Original States 
alone. Upon every admission of a new State into 
this Union, from that day to the present, this dis- 
tinctive Sovereignty has not only been distinctly 
recognized, but also emphatically declared, in the 
compact of admission " on an equal footing with the 
Original States." 

If then, the admission of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, 
Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky, did 
not create a National Sovereignty different from that 
recognized and provided for by the Constitution, the 
same cannot be said of the admission of Louisiana. 
Not only was this state the offspring of a jurisdiction 
extended beyond the Constitutional limit, but its 
admission into the Union " on an equal footing with 
the Original States," was an addition to the National 
Confederacy, which made its government a new and 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 63 

a different National Sovereignty from that contem- 
plated by the Constitution. Hence, all its acts done 
in its Sovereign capacity, must be considered as 
done independently of any original Constitutional 
authority, whether made, or purporting to be made, 
in conformity with the general principles of the 
Constitution or not. 

This peculiarity in the formation and character of 
our National Government, is especially important to 
be observed in considering this question of Slavery, 
in connection with the admission of new States into 
the Union, if we would arrive at a correct compre- 
hension of the theory of its National recognition and 
relations. I have shown this theory under the Con- 
stitution to have been one of restriction and not of 
expansion, and that it was limited, in its practical 
application, to the Original precincts of the United 
States as established under the Definitive Treaty 
with Great Britain. The acquisition of the Louis- 
iana Territory was the introduction of a new Slave- 
population within the embrace of our National 
Sovereignty, the existence and ownership of which 
claimed anew its National recognition and protec- 
tion. This was guaranteed to the existing servitude 
in the State of Louisiana by the compact for her 
admission into the Union. But that, strictly speak- 
ing, could not be called an extension of Slavery 
itself, inasmuch as it already had an existence there 



64 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

before the cession of the Territory to the United 
States by France. The real material question of its 
extension originated with the application of the 
people inhabiting in the Territory called the Terri- 
tory of Missouri, to be admitted into the Union as a 
State. The origin and history of this application, 
therefore, is both interesting and important in this 
connection. 

But before entering upon it I would premise — 
that every new member admitted into union with 
the Original States, out of Territory foreign to the 
original domain of those States and of the United 
States, must necessarily be subject to a new and 
distinct political compact for its admission, made 
between it and the said Original States ; or, between 
it and the States composing the National Sovereignty 
at the time of its admission. It could not derive 
any claim to admission by virtue of any provision in 
the Constitution, for neither it, or the now existing 
Confederacy, was known to the Constitution. In 
this respect evidently it differed in position from a 
State formed out of Territory within the original, 
recognized. Constitutional domain ; and for whose 
admission provision was expressly made in the Con- 
stitution. Hence the right of the New Confederacy 
to dictate terms and impose conditions in the former 
case, beyond the strict letter of the Constitution, which 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 65 

it could not with the same justice or propriety exact 
or enforce in the latter case. 

And again, the purchase of " the domain and 
Sovereignty of the Louisiana Territory, its depend- 
encies, and the Islands adjacent," from France, in 
1803, being an addition to the domain and jurisdic- 
tion of the United States not anticipated and not 
provided for by its framers, necessarily falls under 
some other source of jurisdiction than that derived' 
under the Constitution. It not only enlarged the 
Territorial precincts of the New Sovereignty, called 
the United States, beyond the Constitutional limits, 
but it also derived to this New Sovereignty a domin- 
ion over the new Territory and the people inhabiting 
therein, which the people themselves had no share 
in creating. The purchase, as I have said, was a 
new compact, made with France by the then exist- 
ing National Sovereignty of the United States inde- 

• 

pendently of the Constitution. It was a compact by 
the United States as a Sovereignty, with France as 
another Sovereignty, for the purchase by the former 
of "the domain and Sovereignty" of the latter, over 
Territory with which neither the Constitution, nor 
the States, nor the people of the United States, nor 
the people inhabiting in the said Territory, had any- 
thing to do. The New Sovereignty purchased, be 
it remembered, not only the domain but also the 
Imperial Sovereignty of France over it, and thereby 



66 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

as an inevitable consequence, acquired the Imperial 
rigid to govern it. This right was sovereign and 
exclusive, so far as the people then inhabiting, or 
thereafter to inhabit, in the said Territory were con- 
cerned. Now the question is, who is sovereign over 
this same Territory ? The people inhabiting therein, 
or the Sovereignty which purchased it ? Again, the 
question is, who shall say upon what terms, or sub- 
^*ect to what conditions, the people inhabiting in the 
said Territory may be erected into an independent 
State, and admitted as such into Union with the 
States composing the National Confederacy, with 
the same rights of Sovereignty, freedom, and Inde- 
pendence ? Who does not see that herein is involved 
a relinquishment on the part of the National Gov- 
ernment of the imperial supremacy which it pur- 
chased from France, at a cost of six million francs ? 
Who does not see that the transfer from such a 
Territorial to a State Organization, involves a decla- 
ration of independence on the part of the people 
inhabiting in the Territory, or a relinquishment of 
its supremacy over them on the part of the National 
Sovereignty of the United States ? The very idea 
supposes a condition of political elevation which 
cannot be created without depriving the National 
Sovereignty of a part at least of its own supremacy. 
Not only so, but it also places the New Organization 
in the relations and position of a copartner in the 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 67 

Sovereignty residing in the National Confederacy. 
And has the National Sovereignty no voice in this 
political transformation ? May it not say whether 
at all, or upon what terms, or subject to what 
fundamental conditions, it will consent to this new 
creation ? Consent to relinquish its own supremacy 
in its own Territory, and to admit the new State, 
thus created, into the great Federal Copartnership ? 
Certainly it must. In the case of Louisiana, as we 
have seen, it exercised this right by the fundamental 
condition that her administration and laws, her 
judicial proceedings and records, should be in the 
English language. 

This, I repeat, was a compact made outside of the 
Constitution. Yet it was an exercise of the Sovereign 
capacity of the New Sovereignty, forming a political 
compact in reference to a Territory and to matters 
entirely within its jurisdiction independently of the 
Constitution : and so of the Missouri Territory. 
The transfer of a community so situated from a 
dependent Territorial to an independent State Organ- 
ization, is a change of political condition and rela- 
tions in itself of vast importance not only to the 
people inhabiting in the new Territory, but also to 
the people and States composing tlie National Sover- 
eignty called the United States. It is a transition 
which makes it an entirely different political organi- 
zation, sustaining new and peculiar relations of 



68 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

freedom, sovereignty, and independence, to and in 
the great Confederated Republic. To the latter, 
therefore, as well as to the former, it becomes a 
question of peculiar interest — upon what terms and 
subject to what conditions shall we consent to this 
new political organization, and admit it to this posi- 
tion of independence and associated Sovereignty ? 

It cannot, then, be rightfully claimed that the 
National Sovereignty shall have no voice in fixing 
the terms of this change of condition and admission 
into the Union. Especially is this so where the 
National Government is called upon to recognize the 
existence or extension of Slavery beyond the restrict- 
ive provisions of its own Constitution and Laws. 

And just such was the application made by the peo- 
ple of the Territory of Missouri. It was, I repeat, for 
leave to transform themselves from a Territorial to a 
State Organization, and as such State Organization 
to have their independence of the National Sover- 
eignty so far conceded as to permit them to establish a 
State Constitution and Government, that they might 
be admitted into the Union as an individual State, 
with the same rights of sovereignty, freedom, and 
independence as were inherent in the Original 
States. The very application involved the admission 
of their dependence upon the National Sovereignty, 
and that its consent was necessary to enable them to 
form such a State Organization, which involved also 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 69 



the admission that the same Sovereignty had the 
power and the right to prescribe the terms and con- 
ditions upon which this new organization might be 
made. 

But the petition of the people of Missouri was not 
merely for leave to erect themselves into a State 
Organization, it was also for admission into the Union 
under such State Constitution, " on an equal footing 
with the Original States in all respects whatever." 
Nor was this all ; and here originated the difficulty. 
Slavery had extended itself, and was now existing 
in the Territory proposed to be erected into an inde- 
pendent State and thus admitted into the Union. 
The proposition therefore was to admit Missouri as a 
Slave State, which involved three very essential and 
important features ; these were — 

I. The recognition of Slavery therein as a State 
institution, by the National Sovereignty. 

II. The guarantee of protection to the ownership 
of her Slave property by the Laws of the United 
States, as in the Original States under the Consti- 
tution. 

III. Tliat the right of representation in the Na- 
tional legislature should be apportioned on her Slave 
population, as in the Original States. 

This, it will be observed, was a recognition of 
Slavery in which not only the people, but also all 
the States of the whole Union, were alike deeply 
,'7 . 



70 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

interested. These were the prominent and vital 
principles embraced in the application for the admis- 
sion of Missouri, the results of which were to inaug- 
urate and establish, for all time, the policy of the 
New Sovereignty in reference to this subject of 
Slavery in its newly acquired domain. 

On the eighteenth day of December 1818, the 
Speaker of the House of Kepresentatives of the Uni- 
ted States, presented before that body, a memorial 
of the Legislative Council and House of Representa- 
tives of the Territory of Missouri, in the name and 
on behalf of the people of the said Territory, praying 
that they be permitted to form a Constitution and 
State Government, with the boundaries thereof as 
described in said petition, and admitted into the 
Union on an equal footing with the Original States. 
This petition was received, read, and appropriately 
referred. Upon which reference a Bill was subse- 
quently reported by the Committee, " To enable the 
people of the Territory of Missouri to form a State 
Government," etc., and was made the order of the 
day for February thirteenth, 1819. 

The introduction of this Bill, I repeat, involved 
the recognition and extension of Slavery to an extent 
not before anticipated. It became at once a question 
of national and absorbing interest to the people and 
the States of the whole Union. It brought more 
directly before them than ever before, the issue of 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 71 

its restriction or extension. It had extended and 
with an almost imperceptible progress was now 
stealing its way over that immense Territory, and 
the appalling questions were, How far shall it go? 
Where shall its progress end? All the Original 
States were alike parties to the purchase of the Ter- 
ritory, and all were alike interested and startled by 
the issue. They had cut off the foreign source of 
its increase, by abolishing and prohibiting the Slave- 
Trade. 'They had restricted it within their own 
limits at home ; and they thought they had guarded 
against its further extension, when lo ! it rises before 
their astonished vision, knocking at the doors of 
Congress, claiming to be further extended, recog- 
nized, and protected, by the National Sovereignty. 
True, they had already recognized it beyond the 
original limit by the purchase from France. They 
had already adopted and agreed to protect it beyond 
that limit by the admission of Louisiana, and now 
the question is forced upon them, — Shall it go any 
further ? Shall it be still extended, and recognized, 
and protected, by the National Sovereignty ? 

Hence it was that the introduction of the Bill for 
the admission of Missouri into the Union, became 
one of intense national interest and importance. It 
developed the necessity of some definite national 
policy on the subject of Slavery. It presented new 
and very grave questions, involving principles, inter- 



72 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

ests, and sequences, as momentous and extensive as 
any that had ever agitated the nation. Those who 
were instrumental in framing the Constitution, as I 
have. said, had not provided for any such emergency. 
They had not anticipated it. Nor had they antici- 
pated, expected, or even desired, that Slavery should 
be a permanent institution in this Confederacy under 
the sanction of the National Government. 

On the thirteenth day of February 1819, the Bill 
for the admission of Missouri being the order of the 
day, in the House of Representatives, Mr. Tallmadge 
of New York, proposed to amend by adding to it the 
following clause : 

" And provided, that the further introduction of 
Slavery, or involuntary servitude, be prohibited, 
except for the punishment of crimes whereof the 
party shall have l3een duly convicted : And that all 
children born within the said State after the admis- 
sion thereof into the Union, shall be free at the age 
of twenty-five years." 

The justice and general propriety of this amend- 
ment was so apparent, that it was adopted by the 
House, and the Bill was thereupon ordered to a 
third reading, was engrossed, and finally passed on 
the seventeenth of the same month. It then passed 
into the Senate, where it received sundry amend- 
ments, the most material of which was an amendment 
striking out the restriction upon Slavery. It was 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 73 

returned to the House with the amendments made 
by the Senate, all of which were concurred in except 
that which struck out the prohibitory clause con- 
cerning Slavery. On the question of concurring 
with the Senate in this amendment, the House 
refused to concur, and the Bill was returned to the 
Senate. A message was subsequently received from 
the. Senate that they adhered to their amendment, 
and the Bill was lost. 

Contemporaneously with this movement, on the 
fifteenth of December 1818, Mr. Robertson, of Ken- 
tucky, offered to the consideration of the House of 
Representatives a resolution in these words, viz. — 

Resolved^ That a Committee be appointed to 
enquire into the expediency of establishing a sepa- 
rate Territorial Government in that part of the 
Territory of Missouri lying south of thirty-six degrees 
and thirty minutes. North Latitude, which is called 
the Arkansas Country, which is not included in the 
proposed boundary of the projected State of Missouri 
by the Bill now before the House for the purpose of 
establishing a State government in part of the Ter- 
ritory of Missouri; and that the said Committee 
have leave to report by Bill or otherwise." 

This resolution was adopted without opposition. 
On the twenty-first day of the same month, Mr. Rob- 
ertson, from the Committee, reported a Bill estab- 
lishing a separate Territorial government over tl;ie 
7* 



74 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

said Southern part of Missouri, which was read 
twice and committed. On the thirtieth day of Jan- 
uary following, Mr. Scott, from the Territory of Mis- 
souri, presented to the House a petition of sundry 
inhabitants of the Arkansas Country, praying that a 
separate Territorial Government might be estab- 
lished for the said Country, and that Commissioners 
might be appointed to fix a site for the seat thereof; 
which was referred. 

A Bill was subsequently reported on this petition, 
and made the order of the day for February seven- 
teenth, when the House resolved itself into a Com- 
mittee of the whole on the Bill to provide a 
Territorial Government for the Southern part of the 
Missouri Territory, called the Arkansas Country. 

Mr. Taylor, of New York, moved to amend this 
Bill, by inserting a clause precisely similar to the 
amendment of Mr. Tallmadge to the Bill for the 
admission of Missouri, prohibiting Slavery in the new 
Territory. The motion was warmly and widely 
debated, and the range of the debate did not differ 
essentially from that on the Missouri Bill ; except 
inasmuch as the issue here presented had reference 
to a Territorial Government, instead of the restric- 
tion being incorporated into a State Constitution, as 
in the case of Missouri. 

Mr. Taylor's motion was, to amend the proposed 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 75 

Senatorial Bill by inserting in it the following pro- 
viso, viz. — 

" That the further introduction of Slavery, or 
involuntary servitude, be prohibited, except for the 
punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have 
been duly convicted : and that all children, born 
within the said Territory after the admission thereof 
into the Union, shall be free at the age of twenty-five 
years." 

The question on this amendment was divided, and 
was first taken on agreeing to the first clause thereof, 
prohibiting the further introduction of Slavery into 
the Territory ; which was lost. The vote was then 
taken on the latter part of the proposed amendment, 
in these words : — 

"And all children born of slaves within the said 
Territory, shall be free, but may be held to service 
until the age of twenty-five years ; " which was car- 
ried in the affirmative. The Bill, with the Amend- 
ment, was then ordered to be engrossed for a third 
reading. 

II. 

The Bill was again taken up on the nineteenth 
day of February, when Mr. Robertson, of Ken- 
tucky, moved to recommit it to a Select Com- 
mittee, with instructions to strike out the amend- 
ment of Mr. Taylor, adopted by the House on the- 



76 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

seventeenth. On taking the question on this motion 
the vote stood eighty-eight to eighty-eight, and was 
decided in the affirmative by the casting vote of the 
Speaker, Henry Clay. Whereupon the Bill was 
recommitted, and Mr. Robertson, from the Select 
Committee, to whom it was referred, immediately 
reported the Bill amended by striking out the words 
"And all Children born of Slaves within the said 
Territory shall be free, but may be [held to service 
until the age of twenty-five years." The question 
on the concurrence of the House in the Report of 
the Select Committee, in striking out this clause, 
was passed in the affirmative, yeas, 89 ; nays, 87. 

Mr. Taylor now moved to amend the Bill, by 
providing — " that during the existence of the Terri- 
torial Government of Arkansas, no Slaves shall be 
brought into the said Territory to remain therein for 
a longer time than nine months from the date of 
their arrival." After some debate thereon, Mr. 
Taylor modified this amendment so as to read — 
" that neither Slavery, or involuntary servitude, 
shall hereafter be introduced into said Territory, 
otherwise than for the punishment of crimes whereof 
the party shall have been duly convicted." 

To this Mr. Mercer, of Virginia, proposed an 
amendment, by adding thereto — " provided, that 
nothing herein shall divest the inhabitants of Arkaur 
sas of the rights of property in the Slaves which they 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 77 

now hold, or the natural increase thereof ; nor entitle 
to his freedom any slave carried therein and held 
there for a period not exceeding nine months." 
This proposition was rejected without a division, and 
the question was then taken on the amendment of 
Mr. Taylor, and resulted, ayes, 86 ; nays, 91. 

Mr. Taylor now again rose, and stated, that he 
thought it important that some line should be desig- 
nated beyond which Slavery should not be permitted, 
and moved, by way of compromise, and as an addi- 
tional section to the Bill, the following : — " That 
neither Slavery, nor involuntary servitude, shall 
hereafter be introduced into any part of the Territory 
of the United States lying north of thirty-six degrees 
and thirty minutes, North Latitude." 

Mr. Harrison, of Ohio, assented to the expedi- 
ency of establishing some such line, as proposed by 
Mr. Taylor, but proposed, by way of amendment to 
Mr. T's proposition, viz. — 

" That all that part of the present Territory of 
Missouri, lying north of a line to be run due west 
from the mouth of the River Des Moines to the Ter- 
ritorial boundary of the United States, shall form a 
part of the Territory of Michigan ; and the laws now 
in force in the said Territory, as well as the Ordi- 
nance of Congress prohibiting Slavery, or involuntary 
servitude, in said Territory of Michigan, shall be 



78 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

in force in that part of the Missouri Territory lying 
North of the said East and West line." 

After considerable discussion pro. and con, on 
these propositions, Mr. Taylor remarked, that he 
was satisfied from the course of the debate, as well 
as from conversation with members, that it was not 
probable that any line could be agreed upon by the 
House, or any compromise of opinion effected, and 
he therefore withdrew his proposed amendment to 
the Bill. Whereupon the bill was ordered to be 
engrossed and read a third time. On the twentieth 
of February it was read a third time and passed. 

The Bill came up in the Senate, together with the 
Bill to authorize the people of Missouri to form a 
Constitution and State Government, on the twenty- 
seventh day of the same month ; when, as we have 
before seen, the restrictive clause in the latter Bill 
was stricken out ; and the Senate adjourned without 
acting finally on either Bill. 

On the first day of March ensuing, the considera- 
tion of the Arkansas Territorial Bill was resumed in 
the Senate, and on motion of Mr. Burrill, of Rhode 
Island, " That the said Bill be recommitted to the 
Committee to whom the same was first referred, with 
instrvictions so to amend the same, that the further 
introduction of Slave^'y, or involuntary servitude, 
within said Territory, except for the punishment of 
crimes, be prohibited," — it was determined in the 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 79 

negative, ayes, 14 ; nays, 19. The question was 
then taken upon the final passage of the Bill, and 
was decided in the affirmative. 

Thus the Bill was passed by both Houses of Con- 
gress, establishing a Territorial Government over 
the Arkansas Country, without any provision for the 
restriction of Slavery therein. It must be observed, 
however, that while no provision was made for its 
prohibition, neither was any made for its protective 
recognition by the National Sovereignty. 

The most important feature disclosed in this con- 
troversy was the element of opposition to the further 
extension of Slavery, either by its natural increase, 
or by the transfer of Slave property from States 
where it already existed, into the new Territory. 
The Slave Trade was abolished by the unanimous 
consent of the States and the people of the United 
States, and its further increase from that source was 
regarded as virtually at an end. The question of its 
extension was thus necessarily limited to these 
remaining sources of supply. Hence the question 
of its further recognition by the National Sover- 
eignty, by permitting its transfer into this new 
Territory, and protecting its ownership there by the 
laws of the United States, was the great question 
which agitated the Congress and the Nation at this 
time. 

The Bill for the Territorial Government of that 



80 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

portion of the Missouri Territory, called the Arkan- 
sas Country, having been thus disposed of, the dis- 
cussion and the controversy were resumed with 
increased excitement and interest, at the first session 
of the Sixteenth Congress, on the Bill for the admis- 
sion of Missouri into the Union, on an equal footing 
with the Original States, thereby extending the 
recognition and protection of the National Sover- 
eignty over Slavery within her precincts. The 
contest was a very excited and a very fearful one, 
and shook the whole union to its very foundation. 
It continued in its various phases to agitate both the 
Congress and the people of the United States from 
this date, down to the sixth day of March 1820, 
when, having passed both Houses of Congress in its 
present shape, it was approved by the President, and 
became a political Compact between the National 
Sovereignty of the United States and the people and 
States of the Union, and the people thereafter to 
inhabit in the said Territory, on the subject of Slav- 
ery. But to recur to its more particular history. — 
On the eighth day of December, 1819, on motion 
of Mr. Scott, of Missouri, the several Memorials of 
the Legislature of the Territory of Missouri, and of 
the inhabitants of the said Territory, presented to 
the House of Representatives at the last session, 
relative to the erection of that Territory into a State, 
and its admission as such into the Union, was refer- 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 81 



red to a Select Committee. That Committee con- 
sisted of Messrs. Scott ; George Robertson, of Ken- 
tucky ; William Terell and George F. Strother, of 
Virginia ; and Mr. Dewitt, of New York. 

On the ninth of the same month, Mr. Scott, from 
this Committee, reported — " A Bill to authorize the 
People of the Territory of Missouri to form a State 
Government, and for the admission of such State 
into the Union on an equal footing with the Original 
States." The Bill was thereupon read twice, and 
committed to the House in Committee of the whole. 
It was afterward made the order of the day for the 
tenth day of January, 1820 ; when its consideration 
was further postponed, and made the order of the 
day for January twenty-fourth, ensuing ; at which 
time Mr. Taylor, of New York, moved that its con- 
sideration be postponed to that day week, with the 
view of waiting the decision of the Senate on the 
Bill then before that body, on the same subject. 
This motion was lost, ayes, 87 ; noes, 88. 

On the eighth day of December previous, the same 
day in which Mr. Scott moved for a Select Committee 
in the House, Mr. Mellen, in the Senate, presented the 
memorial of a Convention held in the District of 
Maine, praying to be admitted into the Union, as a 
separate and independent State, on the footing of an 
Original State ; together with a Constitution formed 
8 



82 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

in said Convention for the State of Maine ; which 
were severally read and referred. 

On the twenty-second day of the same month, Mr. 
Williams, of Mississippi, from the Committee to 
which these matters were referred, reported a Bill 
to the Senate, declaring the consent of Congress to 
the admission of Maine into the Union as a State ; 
and the Bill passed to a second reading. On the 
twenty-third of December it was read a second time, 
and considered as in Committee of the whole. It 
was then amended, and the further consideration of 
it postponed until Tuesday, December twenty-eighth, 
when it was again postponed to Monday, January 
third, 1820. 

On the twenty-ninth day of December previous, 
Mr. Smith laid before the Senate the Memorial of 
the Legislative Council and House of Representa- 
tives of the Missouri Territory, praying to be admit- 
ted into the Union, as a separate and Independent 
State ; when the memorial was read and referred to 
the Ju.diciary Committee. On Monday, the third 
day of January, a message was received from the 
House of Representatives, informing the Senate, that 
the House had passed a Bill entitled — " An Act for 
the admission of the State of Missouri into the 
Union," and requesting the concurrence of the Sen- 
ate therein. 

Mr. Barbour, of Virginia, observed that this Bill 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 83 

involved considerations of great moment ; that it 
embraced provisions on which there were conflicting 
opinions, though no objection whatever was enter- 
tained to the main object of it, of which he was 
warmly in favor. He concluded his remarks by 
moving that the further consideration of it be post- 
poned to Wednesday, January fifth, when, he said, 
if his present motion succeeded, he should move — 

"That the Bill entitled 'A Bill declaring the 
consent of Congress to the admission of the State of 
Maine into the Union, be committed to the Commit- 
tee on the Judiciary, with instructions so to amend 
it as to authorise the People of Missouri to establish 
a State Government, and to admit such State into 
the Union upon an equal footing with the origmal 
States in all respects whatever.' " 

The motion to postpone was opposed at considera- 
ble length, by Messrs. Mellen, Otis, and Burril, 
successively, on the ground of the impropriety of the 
delay, and also as taken in connection with the 
motion of which notice was given by Mr. Barbour. 
They argued the inexpediency of coupling the two 
subjects together in one Bill ; and that, incidentally, 
the question connected with certain restrictions in 
the Missouri Bill on the subject of Slavery, must 
enter into the debate. Mr. Barbour replied ; but 
the motion now before the Senate being simply on 



84 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 



postponing the consideration of the Maine Bill, it 
was generally agreed to. 

On the fifth of January, the Bill declaring the 
assent of the Senate to the admission of Maine into 
the Union,, was again taken up on motion of Mr. 
Mellen, and the consideration thereof was postponed 
for four weeks. 

The object of this postponement was understood 
to be the relinquishment of this Bill, in order to take 
up the Bill on the same subject, which had already 
passed the House of Representatives, and been 
received and referred to a Committee in the Sen- 
ate. 35, Annals of Congress, 69. 

On the sixth of January, Mr. Smith, from the 
Committee to whom the Bill for the admission of 
Maine had been referred, reported the same with an 
amendment, which amendment was — the addition 
thereto of the whole of the House Bill authorizing 
the people of Missouri to form a State Constitution, 
without the restrictive provision on the subject of 
Slavery. 

Mr. Pinckney, of South Carolina, after alluding 
to the magnitude of the question involved in this 
amendment, and the importance of a full examina- 
tion, clear understanding, and correct decision of it ; 
moved that the consideration thereof be postponed 
to, and made the order of the day for Thursday next, 
January thirteenth, which was carried. Ibid. 74. 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 85 

On Thursday, the thirteenth, the Senate took up 
the Bill from the House, for the admission of the 
State of Maine into the Union, together with the 
amendment reported thereto, by the Judiciary Com- 
mittee, for the admission of Missouri ; when Mr. 
Roberts, of Pennsylvania, rose and said, he felt it to 
be his duty to try the merits of these two questions, 
by a preliminary motion, which he offered, viz., — 
" That the Bill for the admission of the State of 
Maine into the Union, and the amendments thereto 
reported, be recommitted to the Judiciary Commit- 
tee, with instructions so to modify its provisions as' 
to admit the State of Maine into the Union, divested 
of the amendment embracing Missouri." 

The proposition contained in the Report of the 
Committee, by way of amendment to the Bill for the 
admission of Maine, admitting Missouri without any 
restriction upon the subject of Slavery, is evidence 
of the high degree of excitement to which this ques- 
tion had given rise. That Maine was entitled to 
admission into the Union under the provisions of 
the Constitution, there could be no doubt. And she 
might well ask to be admitted " on an equal footing 
with the Original States, in all respects whatever." 
She was a part of the Original Territory compre- 
hended within the precincts of the Original States 
not only, but also a part of one of those States, and 
her inhabitants had joined in the measures of the 
8* 



86 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 



United States in achieving tlieir independence, and 
she was proposed as a Free State. But such was not 
the case with Missouri. Hers was a domain alien 
to the United States at the formation of the Consti- 
tution. A district of Territory acquired of a Foreign 
power since its adoption, and not contemplated in 
the mutual obligations, guarantees, and concessions 
contained in the compact of the Ordinance of 1787, 
or in the provisions of the Constitution. Besides 
the guarantee of recognition and protection in the 
ownership of Slave property, which was so peculiar 
and so sacred between the Original States, there was 
also, as I have said, the basis of a representation in 
Congress, apportioned on the Slave-population in the 
Original States, which could not constitutionally be 
extended to new and foreign countries by merely 
purchasing and bringing them within the pale of the 
Sovereign Jurisdiction of the Union. Whatever their 
position, as Territories belonging to the New Sover- 
eignty, they could not be admitted, as States, to the 
enjoyment of these peculiar and exclusive advanta- 
ges, except by virtue of a new and special compact 
for their admission thereto. It was competent for 
the parties to the original compact of the Constitu- 
tion, the Original States, by a new and independent 
compact for their admission, to guarantee to them 
the enjoyment of like privileges with themselves ; 
which could not be claimed or conferred joer /orce of 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 87 

any Constitutional provision. So also the New Con- 
federacy, now composed of the Original States and 
the New States admitted into the Federal Alliance 
with them, might, and must, be parties to such new 
compact, and that, necessarily, independently of the 
Constitution. The compact proposed, I repeat, is 
not with the Original Constitutional Sovereignty of 
the United States, but with an existing National 
Sovereignty unknown to the Constitution. And it 
has reference also to a Territory unknown to the 
Original Constitutional Jurisdiction, the title to 
which was derived under no Constitutional provision. 
Hence the now existing Sovereignty had a right to 
impose restrictions and exact conditions in the 
formation of this new compact. They might be 
willing to give and concede much, and stipulate 
much, on the subject of taxes, of duties on imports 
and exports in the proposed New State, of participa. 
tion in the common benefits of the public domain, of 
commerce between the States, and in all the advan- 
tages of treaties with Foreign powers, the privileges 
and courtesies of a common citizenship, and a com- 
mon freedom of intercourse between the Original and 
the New States now composing the Federal frater- 
nity of States ; but to stipulate for the indefinite 
extension, and the perpetual recognition andprotec-^ 
tion of involuntary human servitude, involving, as 
it did, important political relations, was quite another 



88 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 



and a different matter. Still, it was necessarily 
involved in the extension of the National domain 
beyond the original limits ; and although Slavery 
therein might not claim to be recognized and 
protected under the Constitution, its recognition 
and protection might be guaranteed under a new 
and independent compact. And Slavery might be 
safe under such a recognition of it in the New State ; 
and the ownership of its Slave property would be 
abvmdantly protected under it, so long as the com- 
pact should be maintained, by the respective parties 
to it, in its original integrity and perpetuity. 

Hence it was that this Missouri question elicited 
so much interest, excitement, and agitation, both in 
and out of Congress. 

The vote on the motion of Mr. Roberts, to recom_ 
mit the Maine Bill, with instructions, after a very 
exciting debate which lasted for several days, was 
finally taken in the Senate, on the seventeenth day 
of January, and the motion was lost ; yeas, 18 ; 
nays, 25. 

The Senate then resumed the consideration of the 
Bill to admit Maine into the Union, with the reported 
amendment including Missouri ; and Mr. Roberts 
moved to add to the amendment whereby Missouri 
was to be admitted to form a State Constitution, the 
following, viz. — 

" Provided^ that the further introduction into the 



ITS NATIONAL KECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 89 

said State of persons to be held to Slavery, or invol- 
untary servitude, within the same, shall be abso- 
lutely prohibited." 

The question on this amendment was debated 
down to the first day of February, when the vote was 
taken, and resulted — yeas, 16 ; nays, 27. 

The subject was still further debated in the Sen- 
ate, on a motion of Mr. Burril, of Rhode Island, to 
incorporate the first three articles contained in the 
political compact of the Ordinance of 1787, into the 
Missouri part of the Maine Bill, in place of the pro- 
vision which required that the Constitution of Mis- 
souri, whenever formed, " shall be republican, and 
not repugnant to the Constitution of the United 
States." This motion was withdrawn by the mover, 
to give place to an amendment proposed by Mr. 
Thomas, of Illinois, as an additional section to the 
Missouri part of the Maine Bill, as follows : 

" And be it further enacted, that in all that tract 
of country, ceded by France to the United States, 
under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of 
thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes. North Latitude, 
excepting only such part thereof as is included 
within the limits of the State contemplated by this 
Act, there shall be neither Slavery, nor involuntary 
servitude, 'otherwise than in the punishment of 
crimes whereof the party shall have been duly con- 
victed. Provided always, that any person escaping 



90 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully 
claimed in any State or Territory of the United 
States, such fugitive may lawfully be reclaimed, and 
conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or 
service, as aforesaid." 

This amendment was subsequently withdrawn by 
Mr. Thomas, and the debate continued on the propo- 
sition to include the two Bills in one Act, as reported 
by the Judiciary Committee ; which was carried in the 
affirmative, February sixteenth, ayes, 23 ; noes, 21. 

The next day, Mr. Thomas renewed his motion, 
varying the phraseology so as to make the amend- 
ment read — 

" And be it further enacted, that in all that Terri- 
tory ceded by France to the United States, under 
the name of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six 
degrees, thirty minutes, North Latitude, excepting 
only such part thereof as is included within the 
limits of the State contemplated by this act, Slavery 
and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the 
punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have 
been duly convicted, shall be, and is hereby, forever 
prohibited. Provided alto ays, that any person 
escaping into the same, from whom labor or service 
is lawfully claimed in any State or Territory of 
the United States, such fugitive may be lawfully 
reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his, 
or her, labor or service as aforesaid." 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 91 



This amendment was adopted without debate, 
yeas 34, nays 10 ; and after some other alterations 
to make the different parts of the Bill conformable 
to each other, the question was taken on ordering 
the whole Bill, as thus further amended, to be 
engrossed and read a third time ; which resulted, 
ayes, 34 ; nays, 20. 

The Bill was then ordered to be engrossed and 
read a third time the next day, Friday, February 
the eighteenth. 

The next day the Bill, entitled, "An Act for the 
admission of the State of Maine into the Union," 
was read a third time as amended, the blanks were 
filled up, and the Bill passed. The title was 
amended so as to read — " An Act for the admission 
of the State of Maine into the Union, and to enable 
the people of Missouri Territory to form a Constitu- 
tion and State Government, and for the admission of 
such State into the Union on an equal footing with 
the Original States ; and to prohibit Slavery in cer- 
tain Territories." Thus far in the Senate. 

III. 

On the twenty-sixth day of January, 1820, in the 
House of Representatives, the Bill for the admission 
of Missouri being under consideration, Mr. Storrs 
submitted the following by way of amendment, 



\ 

92 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 



" And provided further, and it is hereby enacted, 
that, forever hereafter, neither Slavery nor involun- 
tary servitude — except in the punishment of crimes 
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted — 
shall exist in the Territory of the United States, 
lying North of the thirty-eighth degree of North 
Latitude, and west of the River Mississippi, and the 
boundaries of the State of Missouri, as established by 
this- Act. Provided, that any person escaping into 
the said Territory, from whom labor or service is 
lawfully claimed in any of the States, such fugitive 
may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed, according 
to the laws of the United States in such case pro- 
vided, to the person claiming his, or her, labor or 
service as aforesaid." 

After a desultory debate on the motion, the ques- 
tion was taken, and decided in the negative. The 
reading of the Bill then proceeded as far as the 
fourth section, when Mr. Taylor, of New York, pro- 
posed to amend by incorporating into that section 
the following provision, viz. — 

Section Fourth, line twenty-fifth, insert after the 
word States — "And shall ordain and establish that 
there shall be neither Slavery nor involuntary servi- 
tude in the said State, otherwise than in the punish- 
ment of crimes whereof the party shall have been 
duly convicted. Provided ahvays, that any person 
escaping into the same, from whom labor or service 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 93 

is lawfully claimed in any other State, such fugitive 
may be lawfully reclaimed, and conveyed to the per- 
son claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid. 
And provided also, that the said provision shall not 
be construed to alter tli^ condition of any person 
now held to service or labor in the said Territory." 

This amendment proposed to make the restriction 
upon Slavery in the proposed State of Missouri, a 
part of her State Constitution ; or, in other words, 
it made the abolition of Slavery in Missouri, a con- 
dition of her becoming a State Organization and of 
her admission into the Union on an equal footing with 
the Original States. The discussion of this proposi- 
tion was full, and gave rise to a great deal of acrimo- 
nious and fierce debate. It was continued day after 
day to the nineteenth day of February ensuing, when 
it assumed another phase by the introduction of the 
Senate Bill for the admission of Maine and Missouri. 

The Senate Bill, it will be remembered, authorized 
the People of Missouri to form a State Constitution 
without any restriction upon Slavery, but provided 
for its restriction by excluding it from the Territory 
North of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes North 
Latitude, and not included in the State limits. 

The House now took up this bill from the Senate, 
and Mr. Taylor, of New York, moved that the 
amendments of the Senate to the Bill for the admis- 
sion of Maine, be disagreed to by the House. Mr. 
9 



94 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

Scott, of Missouri, moved that they be committed to 
the Committee of the Whole, which then had under 
consideration the Missouri Bill of the House. The 
motion of Mr. Scott took precedence of the motion 
of Mr. Taylor. A long aad animated discussion fol- 
lowed, which the reporters hardly attempted to give 
in detail, and all that is reported is very little else 
than a statement of the names of those who addressed 
the House, and of the positions they took on the 
question before it. Mr. Scott's motion was lost ; 
ayes, 70 ; nays, 107. 

A motion was then made by Mr. Smyth, of Vir- 
ginia, to lay the amendments of the Senate to the 
Maine Bill on the table, and to print them, which was 
lost ; and the question recurred on Mr. Taylor's 
motion to disagree to the amendments of the Senate. 
During the debate on this motion, the amendment 
was called a Compromise^ and some discussion fol- 
lowed as to the fitness of this phraseology. How- 
ever, the term was appropriated. 

Mr. Simkins, of South Carolina, moved that the 
consideration of the amendments be postponed to 
Tuesday, February twenty-second ; and that they be 
printed. This motion was carried by a large majority. 

On Monday, the twenty-first, the House, in Com- 
mittee of the whole, resumed the consideration of 
the Missouri Bill, and the proposed constitutional 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 95 

restriction as to Slavery ; which was debated until 
the hour of adjournment. 

On Tuesday, the twenty-second, the Maine and 
Missouri Bill of the Senate was again taken up, and 
Mr. Randolph, of Va. delivered a speech upon it, of 
two hours length, in which he bitterly opposed the 
restriction contained in the amendment of the Sen- 
ate, declaring it to be unconstitutional. He was 
followed by Mr. Rhea, of Tennessee, who gave place 
to a motion for adjournment, which was carried. 

The debate was resumed again on the twenty- 
third, on the amendments of the Senate to the Maine 
Bill, now the Maine and Missouri Bill. A division 
of the House was called for, and on the question — 
" Will the House disagree to so much of the said 
amendments as is comprised in the words following, 
in the Title of the Bill, to wit :— ' and to enable the 
people of Missouri Territory to form a Constitution 
and State Government, and for the admission of 
such State into the Union, on an equal footing with 
the original States,' and ' Section ii. And be it 
further enacted, that the inhabitants of that portion 
of the Missouri Territory, included within the bound- 
aries hereinafter designated, be, and they are hereby, 
authorized to form for themselves a Constitution and 
State Government, and to assume such name as 
they shall deem proper.' " The question was car- 
ried in the affirmative ; the House disagreeing with 



96 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

the amendment of the Senate, which proposed to 
annex the Missouri Bill to the Maine Bill — yeas, 93 > 
nays, 72. 

The question was then taken on disagreeing to the 
residue of the amendments of the Senate — being the 
details of the Missouri part of the Bill — with the 
exception of that which embraced the compromise 
principle ; which Avas also decided in the affirma- 
tive — ^yeas, 102 ; nays, 68. 

The question was then taken — " Will the House 
disagree on the said Ninth Section ? " being the last 
of the amendments of the Senate to the Maine Bill, 
and containing the restrictive clause on the subject 
of Slavery, north of thirty-six degrees and thirty min- 
utes, North Latitude ; which was also determined in 
the affirmative — for disagreeing 159, against it 18. 

Thus the House rejected all the amendments of 
the Senate to the Bill for the admission of Maine 
into the Union, which had reference to Missouri. 

The Missouri bill was now again taken up. The 
proposed restriction, for the abolition of Slavery by 
the State Constitution, being under consideration, 
Mr. Edwards, of Connecticut, and Mr. Jones, of Ten- 
nessee, addressed the House ; the former in favor of, 
the latter against it. The debate was continued from 
day to day until the twenty-fifth, when Mr. Hill, of 
Massachusetts, rose, and remarking that the progress 
of the debate seemed to be stamped with all the marks 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 97 

of eternity, moved, that the Committee of the whole 
be discharged from any further consideration of the 
Missouri Bill. 

Mr. Lowndes said, if the gentleman from Massa- 
chusetts insisted on his motion, he would cheerfully 
vote for it ; but suggested its withdrawal, to give 
two or three other gentlemen an opportunity to speak 
to-day ; and the motion could be renewed to-morrow 
if necessary. Whereupon, Mr. Hill withdrew his 
motion. 

Mr. Ervin, of South Carolina, and Mr. Scott, of 
Missouri, then addressed the House at great length, 
in opposition to the proposed Slavery restriction. 
Other gentlemen expressed a wish to be heard on 
the question, but as the discussion had already been 
very much protracted, and the public business was 
suffering, they declined speaking. 

Mr. Walker, of North Carolina, attempted to speak, 
but " the question " was called for " so clamorously 
and so perseveringly," that he could proceed no 
further than to move that the Committee rise. The 
Committee refused to rise, by an almost unanimous 

vote. 

Mr. Smith, of North Carolina, now moved " the 
previous question." The Speaker, Mr. Clay, con- 
ceived the motion to be out of order ; and observed 
that it would not effect the object of the gentleman 
who moved it. It was then withdrawn; and the 
9* 



98 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

question was taken on Mr. Taylor's proposed restric- 
tion, and agreed to by from twelve to eighteen 
majority. Whereupon, on motion, the Committee 
rose, with leave to sit again, and the House ad- 
journed. 36, Annals of Congress, 1540. 

On the twenty-sixth of February, Mr. Hill renewed 
his motion — " That the Committee of the whole be 
discharged from the further consideration of the 
Missouri Bill." The motion was los.t. 

The House then, in Committee of the whole, 
went into the consideration of the Bill, when Mr. 
Storrs, of New York, moved to amend it by 
inserting in the Fourth Section, immediately pre- 
ceding the restrictive amendment adopted on the 
twenty-fifth, the following proviso, viz. — " That 
in all that tract of country ceded by France to 
tire United States, under the name of Louisiana, 
which lies North of thirty-six degrees and thirty 
minutes. North Latitude, excepting only such part 
thereof as is included within the limits of the State 
contemplated by this act, there shall be neither 
Slavery nor involuntary servitude, otherwise than in 
the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall 
have been duly convicted. Provided always, that 
any person escaping into the same from whom labor 
or service is lawfully claimed in any State or Terri- 
tory of the United States, such fugitive may be law- 



ITS NATIONAL RECOaNITION AND RELATIONS. 9D 

fully reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming 
his or her labor or service, as aforesaid." 

Mr. Storrs supported this amendment in a speech 
of considerable length, and was followed by Mr. Ran- 
dolph, who spoke more than four hours against it. 
He was followed by Mr. Beecher, of Ohio, who gave 
way to a motion that the Committee rise, and the 
House adjourned. 

On Monday, the twenty-eighth of February, the 
Maine and Missouri Bill of the Senate having been 
returned to that body on the disagreement of the 
House upon it, a message was received from the 
Senate that they insist on their amendments to the 
Bill for the admission of Maine into the Union. 

Mr. Taylor, of New York, moved that the House 
insist on its disagreement to the said amendments. 
Mr. Cobb, of Georgia, asked the Chair whether the 
question could be divided, so as to be taken sepa- 
rately on each principle involved in the amendment. 

Mr. Lowndes, of South Carolina, remarked that it 
appeared to him that there would be much difficulty 
in coming to any conclusion on these amendments, 
in which the two Houses would concur. He thought, 
therefore, that it would be better to lay them aside, 
until the House had matured and finally acted on 
the Bill before it for the admission of Missouri, and 



100 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 



should ascertain how it was received by the Senate. 
T^ith this view, he moved that the amendments be 
laid on the table. On this question the House divi- 
ded, and the motion was lost — ayes, 74 ; nays, 85. 

Mr. Culpeper, of North Carolina, then urged the 
necessity and propriety of mutual forbearance on a 
question so important and delicate. With the hope 
that by acting conclusively on the Bill now before 
the House for the admission of Missouri, and sending 
it to the Senate, all difficulty would be gotten over, 
he moved that the consideration of the amendments 
be postponed till to-morrow — February twenty-ninth. 

This motion was opposed by Mr. Holmes, and by 
Mr. Whitman, of Mass.; on the ground that they were 
averse to delaying a final decision on the amend- 
ments with which the admission of Maine was con- 
nected, and which they wished to separate from it as 
promptly as possible. Whereupon the motion to 
postpone the consideration of the amendments was 
put and lost, without a count. 

The main question then recurring, it was so 
divided, on motion of Mr. Butler, of Louisiana, as to 
be first taken on insisting on the disagreement of the 
House to the first Eight Sections, connecting with the 
Bill for the admission of Maine the Bill for the 
admission of Missouri. The House insisted on their 
disagreement ; ayes, 97 ; nays, 76. 

The question was then taken on the disagreement 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 101 

of the House to the remaining amendment of the 
Senate, contained in the Ninth Section, and embra- 
cing the restriction upon Slavery, which was now 
called the compromise principle. 

Mr. Lowndes, of South Carolina, wished simply 
to remark, before the question was taken, that 
although he should always be ready to vote for such 
a proposition substantially, when presented to him 
combined with the free admission of Missouri ; yet 
as the amendment relative to Missouri had been dis- 
agreed to, it would be useless to retain this amend- 
ment in connection with the Maine Bill alone, and 
as, therefore, he should now vote against retaining 
it, he wished his motive to be understood. 

Mr. McCreary, of South Carolina, remarked to the 
same effect. The question was now put, on the 
House insisting on its disagreement to the Ninth 
Section of the Senate's amendment to the Maine 
Bill, and was carried, ayes, 160 ; nays, 14. 

So the House again disagreed to the whole of the 
Senate's amendment to the Bill for the admission of 
Maine, and directed the clerk so to inform the Sen- 
ate. The Senate then asked a conference on the 
subject, and informed the House that they had 
appointed Managers for that purpose, on their part. 

The House now went into Committee of the whole, 
Mr. Cobb, of Georgia, being in the chair, on the 
Missouri Bill. Mr. Storrs' motion to insert therein 



102 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

the clause excluding Slavery from the Territory 
west of the Mississippi, and north of thirty-six 
degrees and thirty minutes, North Latitude, being 
still under consideration, 

Mr. Beecher, of Ohio, resumed and concluded his 
speech against it, and advocated the right of Con- 
gress to impose the Slavery restriction heretofore 
discussed, upon the State of Missouri, as a condition 
of her admission into the Union, as proposed. 

Mr. Randolph, of Virginia, addressed the House 
at great length against the amendment offered by 
Mr. Storrs, as also against any restriction, and 
against the argument of Mr. Beecher. 

Mr. Mallory, of Vermont, would vote against the 
amendment, though he was in favor of restriction in 
the Territories west of the Mississippi. 

Mr. Storrs, then, again addressed the Committee 
in a brief but earnest speech in favor of his proposi- 
tion. 

Mr. Livermore, of New Hampshire, was opposed 
to the amendment ; and in favor of the State restric- 
tion. 

Mr. Baldwin, of Pennsylvania, spoke in favor of the 
amendment and also in reply to one or two points 
raised by Mr. Beecher. The question was put on Mr. 
Storrs' amendment, which was lost. Sundry other 
amendments were then successively suggested, and 
either rejected or withdrawn ; one of which, made by 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 103 



Mr. Storrs, proposed to modify the restrictive clause 
already adopted, so as to make it a recommendation, 
for the acceptance or rejection of the Convention of 
Missouri as an article of compact, to exclude Slav- 
ery in the State Constitution instead of requiring 
it as an absolute condition of her admission. Thus 
the subject stood at the hour of adjournment. 

On Tuesday, the twenty-ninth day of February, 
the House proceeded to consider the Message from 
the Senate, asking a conference upon the subject of 
the discordant action of the two Houses on the 
amendments of the Senate to the Bill for the admis- 
sion of Maine. Whereupon it was — 

Resolved^ That this House do agree to the confer- 
ence asked by the Senate, upon the subject matter of 
the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the amend- 
ments depending to the Bill aforesaid ; and that 
Managers be appointed to the same on their part. 

Ordered, That Mr. Holmes, Mr. Taylor, Mr. 
Lowndes, Mr. Parker, of Massachusetts, and Mr. 
Kinsley, be Managers on the part of the House. 

The House then took up The Missouri Bill, au- 
thorising the people of the Territory of Missouri to 
form a Constitution and State Government ; and 
proceeded to consider the amendments reported by 
the Committee, which being read, were concurred in 
with the exception of the following : — " And shall 
ordain and establish, that there shall be neither Slav- 



104 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

ery, nor involuntary servitude in the said State, 
otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, where- 
of the party shall have been duly convicted. Pro- 
vided always^ that any person escaping within the 
same, from whom labour or service is lawfully claim- 
ed in any other State, such fugitive may be lawfully 
reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his, 
or her, labour or service, as aforesaid. Provided 
nevertheless^ that the said provision shall not be 
construed to alter the condition, or civil rights of any 
person now held to service or labour in said Terri- 
tory." 

The question was stated, to concur in this amend- 
ment, when Mr. Storrs, moved to amend by striking 
out the words " and shall ordain and establish that," 
and in lieu thereof to insert — " and he it further 
enacted^ that the following propositions be, and the 
same are hereby offered to the said Convention for 
their free acceptance, or rejection, to be incorporated 
into the Constitution of the said State, as articles of 
compact between the said States and the United 
States, viz. : that there be neither Slavery nor invol- 
untary servitude," etc., following the words of the 
Committee's amendment. After some debate on this 
motion it was lost ; ayes, 82 ; nays, 98. 

The question was then taken on " the restrictive 
amendment reported by the Committee, on the 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 105 



motion of Mr. Taylor, and was decided in the affirm- 
ative, ayes, 94 ; nays, 86. 

Mr. Taylor then renewed a motion made by him 
unsuccessfully in Committee of the whole, to amend 
the last section of the Bill, by striking out the words 
" and the said States, when formed, shall be admitted 
into the Union on an equal footing with the Original 
States," and insert in lieu thereof — " and if the 
same " Constitution " shall be approved by Congress, 
the said Territory shall be admitted into the Union 
as a State, upon an equal footing with the Original 
States." Which was lost, ayes, 49 ; nays, 125. 

The question was now taken upon ordering the 
Bill to be engrossed and read a third time, which 
was carried ; so the Bill was ordered to be ^engrossed 
and read a third time on the morrow, March first. 
Ayes, 93 ; nays, 84. 

House of Representatives, Wednesday, March first, 
1820. The Engrossed Bill was read a third time, 
and the question put, " Shall this Bill pas.s ? " 

Mr. Randolph rose and spoke more than three 
hours against the passage of the Bill, opposing the 
proposed restrictive Slavery clause as luiconstitution- 
al and unjust. When he concluded, Mr. Holmes, of 
Massachusetts, called for the previous question, and 
the House sustained the call ; whereupon the main 
question was taken on the final passage of the Bill, 

and decided in the affirmative, ayes, 91 ; noes, 82. 
10 



106 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

The Bill was then sent to the Senate for their con- 
currence, and the House adjourned. 

Thursday, March second. A message was received 
from the Senate, informing the House that the Sen- 
ate had passed the Missouri Bill, with an amend- 
ment ; which amendment was, to strike out the 
Slavery restriction upon the State, and insert instead 
thereof, the clause — Mr. Thomas' and Mr. Storrs' orig 
inal proposition to exclude Slavery from all the Terri- 
tories of the United States, west of the Mississippi, 
and north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes 
North Latitude, except within the limits of the pro- 
posed State of Missouri. 

On motion of Mr. Holmes, this Message from the 
Senate was lajd on the table, to enable him to make 
a report from the Committee of Conference on the 
Maine and Missouri Bill of the Senate ; Whereupon 
Mr. Holmes, from the Managers appointed on the 
part of the House to confer with the Managers on 
the part of the Senate, upon the subject-matter of 
the discordance of the two Houses on the amend- 
ments of the Senate to the Bill of the House, enti- 
tled " An Act providing for the admission of the 
State of Maine into the Union," made the following 
report as a compromise. 

First. They recommend to the Senate, to recede 
from their amendments to the said Bill. 

Second. They recommend to the two Houses to 
agree to strike out the fourth section of the Bill from 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 107 

the House of Representatives, now pending in the 
Senate, entitled — "An Act to authorize the people 
of Missouri to form a Constitution and State Gov- 
ernment, and for the admission of such State into 
the Union, on an equal footing with the Original 
States," the following proviso in the following words: 
" and shall ordain and establish that there shall be 
neither Slavery nor involuntary servitude in said 
State, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes 
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted. 
Provided always, that any person escaping into the 
same, from whom labour or service is lawfully claim- 
ed in any other State, such fugitive may be lawfully 
reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his, 
or her service as aforesaid ; Provided nevertheless 
that the said provision shall not be construed to alter 
the condition, or civil rights, of any person now held 
to service or labor in said Territory." 

And that the following provision be added to the 
Bill. 

" Section Eighth. And be it further enacted, that 
in all that Territory ceded by France to the United 
States, under the name of Louisiana, which lies 
north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes North 
Latitude, not included within the limits of the State 
contemplated by this Act, Slavery and involuntary 
servitude, otherwise than in the punishment of 
crimes whereof the party shall have been duly con- 



108 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 



victed, shall be, and is hereby, forever prohibited. 
Provided Always, that any person escaping into the 
same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claim- 
ed in any other State or Territory of the United 
States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, and 
conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or 



service." 



The Report being read, was laid on the table ; and 
the House resumed the consideration of the Amend- 
ments of the Senate to the Missouri Bill, upon which 
the question was divided so as to be first taken on 
striking out the Slavery restriction upon the State 
of Missouri. 

Mr. Lowndes, of South Carolina, spoke briefly, and 
advocated the compromise recommended by the Com- 
mittee of Conference ; and urged with great earnest- 
ness the propriety of a decision which would restore 
tranquility to the country : which, he said, was de- 
manded by every consideration of moderation, of 
wisdom, and of virtue. 

Mr. Holmes, of Massachusetts, spoke to the same 
effect. 

Mr. Adams, of Massachusetts, spoke in favor of 
the State restriction and against the Compromise. 

Mr. Kinsey, of New Jersey, Mr. Stephens, of Con- 
necticut, and Mr. Mercer, of Virginia, each spoke in 
favor of the Compromise, when the previous ques- 
tion was called, and the call being sustained by the 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 109 



House, the question was taken on concurring with 
the Senate in striking out of the Bill the Slavery 
restriction on the State of Missouri, and decided in 
the affirmative, ayes 90, nays 87. 

The question was then stated upon the second part of 
the amendment of the Senate, when Mr. Taylor moved 
to amend the amendment of the Senate, by striking 
out the words, " thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes, 
North Latitude," and to insert a line which w^ould 
exclude Slavery from all the Territory West of the 
Mississippi River, except Louisiana, Missouri, and 
Arkansas. 

The previous question being demanded and sus- 
tained by the House, Mr. Taylor's motion was 
excluded, and the main question was then stated on 
concurring with the Senate in inserting in the Bill, 
in place of the Slavery restriction pn the proposed 
State of Missouri, the clause prohibiting Slavery in 
the Territory north of thirty-six degrees and thirty 
minutes. North Latitude : which was decided in the 
affirmative, ayes, 134 ; nays, 42. 

The amendment made to the Title of the Bill, by 
adding the words — " and to prohibit Slavery in cer- 
tain Territories," was then concurred in, which made 
the whole Title to read — "An Act to authorize the 
people of the Missouri Territory to form a Constitu- 
tion and State Government, and for the admission of 
such State into the Union on an equal footing with 
10* 



110 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 



the Original States, and to prohibit Slavery in certain 
Territories." All the amendments being thus con- 
curred in, the Bill was passed by both Houses. See 
the Bill. 3, U. S. Stat, at large, 545. 

On the twenty-second day of February, 1821, on 
motion of Henry Clay, a Committee on the part of 
the House was appointed, to join a Committe on the 
part of the Senate, on the subject of the admission 
of Missouri under the State Constitution formed 
pursuant to the provisions of the aforesaid Act. On 
the twenty-sixth of the same month, Mr. Clay, from 
the Joint Committee, reported a resolution for the 
admission of Missouri "upon the fundamental condi- 
tion that the Fourth Clause of the Twenty-Sixth 
Section of the Third Article of the Constitution 
submitted on the part of the said State to Congress, 
shall never be construed to authorize the passage of 
any law, and that no law shall be passed in confor- 
mity thereto, by which any citizen of either of the 
States in this Union, shall be excluded from the en- 
joyment of any of the privileges and immunities to 
which such citizen is entitled under the Constitu- 
tion of the United States. Provided, that the Leg- 
islature of the said State, by a solemn Public Act, 
shall declare the assent of the said State to the said 
fundamental condition, and shall transmit to the 
President of the United States, on or before the 
Fourth day of November next, an authentic copy of 
the said Act, upon the receipt whereof the President, 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. Ill 

by Proclamation, shall announce the fact ; where- 
upon, and without any further proceeding on the 
part of Congress, the admission of the said State 
into this Union shall be considered as complete." 
3, U. S. Stat, at large, 653. 

That section of the Constitution of Missouri, re- 
ferred to in the foregoing Resolution, was as follows, 
viz. : — " The General Assembly shall have power to 
pass Laws — to permit the owners of Slaves to eman- 
cipate them, saving the rights of creditors, where the 
person so emancipating will give security that the 
slave so emancipated shall not become a public 
charge. It shall be their duty as soon as may be, to 
pass such laws as may be necessary; 

First. To prevent free negroes and mulattoes from 
coming to, and settling in this State, under any pre- 
text whatsoever. And, 

Second. To oblige the owners of Slaves to treat 
them with humanity, and to abstain from all injuries 
to them, extending to life and limb." Revised 
Statutes of Missouri, 32, 33. 

The power of the National Sovereignty to impose 
restrictions upon the Constitution even, of a New 
State, before its actual admission into the Union, is 
very forcibly illustrated in this resolution. The con- 
dition therein provided, was accepted by the Legisla- 
ture of Missouri by "A Solemn Public Act, declaring 
the assent of the State to this fundamental condition," 
which Act was approved by the Governor of Missouri 



112 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

June twenty-sixth, 1821. The President of the 
United States, issued his Proclamation, declaring 
the actual admission of Missouri into the Union as 
a State, on the twentieth day of August, in the same 
year : and on the sixteenth day of March, 1822, the 
Laws of the United States were duly extended over 
the State of Missouri, by Act of Congress. 



Such was the compact under which the New Na- 
tional Sovereignty of the United States consented to 
relinquish its supremacy over the Missouri Territory 
so far as to enable the people inhabiting therein to 
erect themselves into a State, with the same rights of 
freedom, sovereignty, and independence as the other 
States, and to form a State Constitution, with a view 
to their admission into the Union as a Slave State, 
" on an equal footing with the Original States." 
Such was the origin and the nature of the Missouri 
Compromise. It was predicated upon the absence of 
any power in Congress, under the Constitution, to 
extend or recognize Slavery beyond the limits of the 
Original State and Territorial domain of the United 
States. It was a compact for the extension of Slavery 
on the one hand, and for its restriction on the other; 
for its recognition and protection in the State of 
Missouri, and its perpetual abolition, or exclusion, 
beyond the line of thirty-six degrees and thirty min- 
utes, North Latitude. Thus the whole country pur- 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 113 

chased from France by the United States under the 
name of Louisiana, — except as provided in the 
Eighth Section of this Compact — was interdicted to 
freedom and opened to the occupancy of Slavery ; 
and as a consideration or compensation for all this 
concession to it, its perpetual prohibition beyond 
that line was guaranteed by the National Sovereignty. 

The Compact was an important one. It was as 
important to humanity and to freedom as was the 
Compact of the Ordinance of 1787, or even of the 
Constitution itself. It was all the more important 
because it was unconstitutional. Otherwise it need- 
ed not to have been made the subject of compromise. 
The proviso in favor of the recaption of fugitive 
slaves, stands a recorded admission of its unconsti- 
tutionality. It stands an admission that Slavery in 
Missouri, and in the New Territory purchased from 
France, was beyond the reach of any Constitutional 
recognition or protection. For what need of the 
proviso, if the government, under the Constitution, 
could recognise the existence of Slavery, and protect 
the ownership of Slave property, in that newly ac- 
quired domain ? 

What need of such a proviso, if the admission 
into the Union " on an equal footing with the Origi- 
nal States in all respects whatever," brought the 
ownership of Slave property therein, within the 
protection of the Constitutional provision for the 



114 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

reclamation of fugitives from service ? Indeed, what 
need was there for any provision for the reclamation 
of Fugitive Slaves escaping from the Original States 
into the said Territory, if the Constitutional provis- 
ion was ample and sufficient for this purpose ? I say 
again, the very existence of this proviso is a recorded 
admission that Slavery was not, and could not be, 
recognised or protected there under the Constitution. 
Hence, I repeat again, hence the necessity of a New 
Compact for it, independently of the Constitution. 
The Compact therefore is the basis of the recogni- 
tion and protection given to Slavery in this new do- 
main ; And so long as the Compact stands, whether 
it is Constitutional or not, so long must the National 
Sovereignty recognize and protect it, and just so long 
is its power sufficient to recognize and protect it, 
within the limits of its provisions. 

The clear legal inference from all these premises 
is this. The regulation or government of Foreign 
Territory added to the National domain since the 
adoption of the Constitution ; and the admission in- 
to the Union of States formed out of such Territory, 
are not comprehended in its provisions. The recog- 
nition of Slavery, or the protection of property in 
Slaves, in such States or Territory, therefore, is not 
a subject of Constitutional regulation, but of com- 
pact between the several States composing the 
National Sovereignty, and the people inhabiting in 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 115 

the New Territory, at the time of its acquisition ; or 
in the proposed New State at the time of its admis- 
sion. Hence, if a State is proposed to be created 
out of such Territory, with a view to be admitted 
into the general Union, it is done not by virtue of 
any original Constitutional provision, but must be 
done by virtue of a New Compact, made between 
the States which, as members of the General Union, 
were parties to the acquisition ; and the people of the 
State or Territory proposed to be admitted. This 
Compact may, it must, prescribe and determine the 
conditions and terms upon which such New State 
may be created, as also of its admission. If it does 
not recognize the existence of Slavery, or guarantee 
protection to the ownership of Slave property, in the 
proposed New State, under the laws of the United 
States, it is not recognized there, and cannot be 
protected there under the Constitutional provision, 
or by virtue of any Law of Congress made in pur- 
suance thereof. 

It is true, nevertheless, that the people of the Slave 
holding States have a right, — not indeed under the 
Constitution, and therefore not a Constitutional right, 
but, — under the Compact of purchase to which they 
were parties, to go with their Slave property into the 
newly acquired Territory. But this right of trans- 
migration or of occupancy does not, of necessity, give 
them a right to have it recognized there by the Na- 



116 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 



tional Government so as to become the basis of a 
representation in Congress, or so as to guarantee 
their ownership of it there under the Constitution, 
as in the Original States. Such a recognition of it 
there, and the right of reclamation in case of its 
escape, must be the subject of especial compact with 
the National Sovereignty, bringing it within its ju- 
risdiction, as in the Missouri Compromise Compact: 
And by virtue of the same power it may also pro- 
hibit it. In this originates the true and only Na- 
tional recognition of Slavery, and the guarantee of 
protection given to the ownership of Slave prop- 
erty, where it enters upon Territory not compre- 
hended within the limits of the Original Constitu- 
tional jurisdiction of the United States. 

Hence we see the importance to Slavery of the 
Compromise provision in the Compact for the ad- 
mission of Missouri into the Union as a Slave State. 
Its perpetuity was as important to the Slave States as 
it was to the Free States. It was more so, for free- 
dom was thereby more restricted than Slavery. The 
first proposition was, to require of Missouri as a 
condition of her being erected into a State Organi- 
zation, and of her admission into the Union as such, 
to provide in her State Constitution for the abolition 
of Slavery within her precincts. The Compromise 
was, to relinquish this exaction on condition that 
Slavery should, by the common consent of all the 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 117 

parties to the Compact, be forever prohibited in, or 
excluded from the rest of the said Territory, as in 
the Eighth Section of the Act. It was a compact 
made by the people of all the States then composing 
the National Sovereignty, with each other, and with 
the people of the proposed State of Missouri, and the 
people who should thereafter inhabit in the said 
Territory, precisely similar to the Compact contained 
in the Ordinance of 1787. Every section of it was 
as much and as truly and really binding upon the par- 
ties to it as the whole was ; and each distinct section 
just as much so as any and every other. The sub- 
ject of it was a matter of universal and not merely 
sectional interest ; of perpetual and not merely tem- 
porary obligation : And it was thus settled at this 
time, by those who understood the subject, and look- 
ed at and considered it in all its comprehensive 
sequences and relations. 

The settlement of it brought repose to the Coun- 
try, strengthened the bonds of fraternity and union 
between the States, and inspired the hope that the 
result might be — as was predicted by the advocates 
of Slavery-extension — the improvement of the con- 
dition of the Slave population, and the gradual de- 
crease of Slavery itself, by dispersing it over a 
broader surface without any other source of supply 
than its natural increase. The argument, both on 
the score of humanity and expediency in this regard, 
11 



118 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 



was urged by such men as Henry Clay, James Mad- 
ison, Thomas Jefferson, and others, and was at least 
plausible. 

This was the second great National Era of Slavery 
in the United States. For long years subsequent to 
this period the question of its further recognition 
and extension was at rest, and continued to be at 
rest until there came another era in our history 
which made it again a question of quite as much 
national interest and importance. This too, was a 
contingency not anticipated, and therefore not pro- 
vided for, by the framers of the Constitution. It 
was the admission into the Federal Union of an 
already independent and Sovereign Republic, owing- 
no allegiance to, and never having sustained any 
ties of political dependence upon, the United States- 
I mean the Annexation of Texas. 

V. 

The principle of a Sovereignty in the National 
Government derived independently and outside of the 
Constitution, was very forcibly and aptly illustrated 
in the Annexation of Texas to the United States by 
a joint resolution of Congress, in 1845. The Sover- 
eignty, called the United States, was at this time 
composed of the Thirteen Original States ; the New 
States of Vermont, Maine, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, 
Michigan, Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, and Ten- 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 119 

nessee, formed out of the Original Territorial do- 
main known to the Constitution, and within the 
boundaries of the United States as settled by the 
Treaty with Great Britain ; and the New States of 
Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas and Florida, four 
State Organizations created out of Territory foreign 
to the Original States and not known to the Consti- 
tution, or recognized as within its original jurisdic- 
tion. The domain and Sovereignty over the latter, 
Florida, was purchased by the then United States, 
from Spain, February twenty-second, 1819. 

Here again, we have a New National Sovereignty 
vastly different from that established under the 
Constitution — different in the extent of its domain, 
in the reach of its jurisdiction, and in the source of 
its supremacy. In its Federal and State relations, 
nevertheless, it is the Constitution still which limits 
both its Sovereignty and the Allegiance which is its 
due : While in its Territorial possessions, its own 
inherent or purchased Sovereignty is the source of 
its supremacy. It was in the exercise of its Sover- 
eign right to acquire Territory outside of the Con- 
stitution, that this New Sovereignty, called 
the United States, resolved upon the Annexation of 
Texas. The Act cannot be defended or sustained 
on any other theory. It was as foreign to and as 
independent of any provision contained in the Con- 
stitution, or any power given to Congress therein, 



120 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

as was the Treaty of Peace with Great Britain in 
1783. It certainly cannot be claimed that there is 
any provision in the Constitntion for any such anom- 
alous proceeding. Suppose, in the phraseology of 
the same Resolution, it should be to-day — Resolved 
hy the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America^ in Congress assembled, 
That Congress doth consent that the Kingdom of 
Great Britain may be erected into a New State to be 
called the State of Great Britain, with a Republican 
form of Government, to be adopted by the people 
thereof, by deputies in Convention assembled, with 
the consent of the existing Government, in order 
that the same may be admitted as one of the 
States of this Union," — would any one contend that 
this resolution was in pursuance of any provision, or 
authority for it, contained in the Constitution ? 
Certainly not. And how was it different with Texas ? 
What provision in the Constitution is it under which 
her admission into the Union as an Original Mem- 
ber of the Confederated Republic is provided for ? 
And then look at the conditions upon which such 
consent of Congress was predicated. Well enough 
indeed, when referred to simply in connection with 
the one grand purpose of the enactment, the trans- 
fer of her domain and Sovereignty to the United 
States, but hardly sufficient to bring her into the 
Union "on an equal footing with the Original 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 121 

States " as to the subject of Slavery, under the 
Constitution. 

One of the provisions contained in the Compact, 
under which the consent of Congress was given to 
her being erected into a State, with a view to her 
admission, specifies — 

" Third. New States of convenient size, not 
exceeding four in number, in addition to said State 
of Texas, and having sufficient population, may- 
hereafter, by the consent of the said State, be formed 
out of the Territory thereof, which shall be entitled 
to admission under the provisions of the Federal 
Constitution : And such States as may be formed 
out of that portion of said Territory lying South of 
thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes. North Lati- 
tude, commonly known as the Missouri Compromise 
Line, shall be admitted into the Union loith or with- 
out Slavery as the people of each State asking ad- 
mission may desire : and in such State or States as 
shall be formed out of said Territory North of said 
Missouri Compromise Line, Slavery, or involuntary 
servitude, (except for crimes) shall be prohibited." 

Now, I ask, what power has Congress, under the 
Constitution, to make any such provision for the 
admission into the Union of an Independent Sover- 
eign power, or of New States formed, or to be for- 
med, out of its Territory ? Clearly none. This 
very section concedes that no such power is given by 
IF 



122 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

the Constitution. Else whence and why this new 
provision for the admission of such New States ? If 
the admission of the Republic of Texas into the 
Union " on an equal footing with the Original States 
in all respects whatever," was constitutional, and 
that stipulation placed her and her Territorial 
domain under all the provisions of the Constitution, 
in the same sense and to the same extent as the 
Original States were under them, where was the 
need of any new provision for the admission of any 
New State, comprehended within her Territorial 
limits ? And what provision of the Constitution 
can be made, under any just rule of construction, to 
sustain these stipulations on the subject of Slavery ? 
Certainly none, certainly the Constitution was never 
intended to give such a limitless recognition to 
Slavery, or so immeasurably to extend it, and that 
too over Territory whence Congress, acting under it, 
had already prohibited its importation. It cannot be. 
Still I do not mean for one moment to question, 
nay rather my argument is, that it was competent 
for the United States composing the Federal Union 
when Texas was admitted, to make just such a Com- 
pact, independently of the Constitution. But I deny 
that, after it is made. Slavery can be recognized or 
sustained there under the Constitution, independent- 
ly of the Compact. The United States, acting in 
their New Sovereign Capacity, may stipulate to 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 123 



extend the provisions of the Federal Constitution 
and the Laws made in pursuance thereof, over Texas 
for any and all purposes whatsoever, but it is a stip- 
ulation made independently of the Constitution 
itself. The Compact, it must be remembered, is a 
Compact between two distinct and Independent 
Sovereignties. Neither of them known originally to 
the Constitution . One of them the Republic of Texas , 
the other the enlarged Republic of the United 
States. It was a Compact for the sale and transfer 
of the former to the supremacy and jurisdiction of 
the latter, so as to give to it the position of member- 
ship in the General Union, while it retained just so 
much and no more of its independency than was 
necessary to give it the position of a distinct State 
Organization in the Federal Fraternity of States. 
The Constitution had no more to do with the Com 
pact on the part of the United States, than it had to do 
with the Compact on the part of the Republic of 
Texas. It has no provision in it which prescribes or 
specifies the terms which shall be dictated by the 
former, any more than it does the mode of approach 
which shall be pursued by the latter. Both are 
acting in their Sovereign capacity, and independent- 
ly of any power derived under the provisions of the 
Constitution. 

The joint resolution for the Annexation of the 



124 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

Republic of Texas to the United States, was passed 
and approved March First, 1845. The joint resolu- 
tion of Congress for the admission of the State of 
Texas into the Union, pursuant to the provisions of 
the Compact contained in the former resolution, was 
approved December Twenty-ninth, 1845, and was as 
follows, viz. : 

" Whereas, the Congress of the United States, by 
a joint resolution, approved March the First, eight- 
een hundred and forty-five, did consent that the 
Territory properly included within, and rightfully 
belonging to, the Republic of Texas, might be erected 
into a New State, to be called the State of Texas, 
with a Republican form of Government to be adop- 
ted by the people of said Republic, by deputies in 
Convention assembled, with the consent of the 
existing Government, in order that the same might 
be admitted as one of the States of this Union ; 
which consent of Congress was given upon certain 
conditions specified in the First and Second Sec- 
tions of said joint resolution — And whereas, the 
people of the said Republic of Texas, by deputies in 
Convention assembled, with the consent of the exist- 
ing government, did adopt a Constitution, and erect 
a New State with a Republican form of Government, 
and, in the name of the people of Texas, and by 
their authority, did ordain and declare that they 
assented to, and accepted, the proposals, conditions. 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 125 



and guarantees contained in said First and Second 
sections of said resolution. — And whereas, the said 
Constitution, and the proper evidence of its adop" 
tion by the people of the Republic of Texas, have 
been transmitted to the President of the United 
States, and laid before Congress, in conformity to 
the provisions of the said joint resolution ; There- 
fore, 

" Resolved, by the Senate and House of Represent- 
atives of the United States of America, in Congress 
assembled. That the State of Texas shall be one, 
and is hereby declared to be one of the United 
States of America, and admitted into the Union on 
an equal footing with the Original States, in all 
respects whatsoever." 

Did this resolution admit Texas into the Union so 
as Constitutionally to legalize the Compact made 
with her in regard to Slavery, under which the con- 
sent of Congress was given to her forming a Con- 
stitution and State Government with a view to her 
admission ? Certainly it could not, for no one of 
the Original States stood on any such footing under 
the Constitution. There was no provision in it with 
reference to them, and there was no Compact 
between the Original States themselves, which con- 
templated the admission of States into the Union 
" either with or without Slavery, as the people of 
each State (Territory) asking admission may desire." 



126 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

The people inhabiting in the State or Territory of 
Texas cannot certainly claim, under this resolution, 
any greater advantages for Slavery than were accor- 
ded to it in the Original States under the Constitu- 
tion. The question then necessarily arises, how far 
is Slavery recognized and protected in Texas, or in 
any part of the Territorial domain which belonged 
to her as an Independent Republic, under the Com- 
pact for her admission ? No farther, certainly, than 
the Compact of surrender or annexation, and admis- 
sion, itself provides : and only under that Compact ; 
and not by virtue of any provision in the Constitu- 
tion independent of the Compact. The Compact is 
therefore the true and only basis and the limit of its 
recognition by the General Government. If it is 
asked that her representation in Congress be appor- 
tioned on a Slave population as in the Original 
States, it must be conceded under the Compact for 
her annexation and admission, though it could not 
be under the Constitution. If it is asked as to the 
right to reclaim fugitives from labor or service that 
the people inhabiting in her Territory may be placed 
on the same footing with the Original States, it is 
conceded by virtue of the Compact, though it may 
not be under the Constitution. But to be on the 
same footing with the Original States in this respect — 
and more than this cannot be claimed — the places of 
escape and of refuge must be the same to which the 



ITS NATIONAL KECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 127 

Original States were restricted under the Constitution. 
Beyond that, and within her State or Territorial 
limits, Slave property must be recognized and pro- 
tected, if at all, not by the Constitution, but by the 
Compact between herself and the United States on 
her annexation or admission. If that Compact fails^ 
or is repudiated as unconstitutional, or because 
unconstitutional, then Slavery is unrecognized, and 
the ownership of Slave property is unprotected, 
within her State and Territorial precincts, by any 
authority of the United States whatsoever. 

But again, and farther. The Compact with Texas 
being made with her in her Sovereign capacity, can- 
not be construed as if it were made with a Territory 
originally or already a part of the public domain of 
the United States, that might by possibility give the 
people inhabiting therein some equitable claim to 
admission into the Union with Slavery. But the par- 
ties contracting are perfectly independent of each 
other in all respects whatsoever. And what are 
they contracting about ? A. and B. are contracting 
with each other for the sale and purchase of a cer- 
tain tract of land belonging to A. A. stipulates, on 
certain precedent conditions, that he will sell the 
land to B. Now the agreement to sell may be one 
thing, and the actual sale may be another and a 
very different thing. The conditions of the agree- 
ment to sell, or to purchase, may l^e quite other and 



128 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 



different from the terms of the sale and the purchase 
itself : So here ; the United States agree that on her 
complying with certain precedent conditions, they 
will consent that a part of the Territory of Texas, 
an Independent Sovereignty, may be erected into a 
New State, in order that as such State — not as such 
Independent and Sovereign Republic — she may apply 
for admission into the Union : Now all the while she 
is performing these precedent conditions, whether 
called an Independent Republic or a New State, 
Texas is acting in her own Sovereign capacity ; in- 
dependent both of Congress and the Constitution. 
The conditions upon which assent is given by Con- 
gress, or the National Sovereignty of the United 
States, to these preliminary proceedings on her part, 
are one thing : The Compact for her actual admission 
into the Union is, or may be, quite another thing. 
Her admission as such New State into the Union is 
another Compact than that which relates to the con- 
ditions precedent to her becoming such a State 
Organization, viz. ; the surrender of a portion of her 
domain, and her Sovereignty as an Independent 
Republic, to the United States. That was her own 
act. It required no enabling Act of Congress to 
give her power or permission thus to change her 
political character or condition. She was already 
Independent and Sovereign, and in the exercise of 
her own Sovereignty could have made herself a 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 129 



State in the sense of the Constitution of the United 
States, without thereby becoming entitled to admis- 
sion into the Union. But something more was 
necessary. She could not force herself into the 
Union. The proposition on her part was, to 
renounce her political character of an independent 
and Sovereign Nation, to surrender a portion of her 
domain and her Sovereignty, and to assume the po- 
sition of a State Organization whose Sovereignty 
must necessarily be subject to the higher Sovereign- 
ty of the United States, agreeably to the principles of 
the Federal Constitution. So that the one Compact 
was an agreement, or treaty, with her in her Sovereign 
capacity independent of the Constitution ; the other 
a Compact with her as a political organization whose 
imperial or exclusive Sovereignty was surrendered 
to the Sovereign jurisdiction of the United States : 
That is, to the jurisdiction of a Sovereignty other 
than that created by the Constitution. She calls 
herself no more a Nation, but a State. She surren- 
ders a part of her Territory, and puts herself on the 
same level as to her political character with the 
Original States, and then, by virtue of the Compact 
for her annexation or admission made with this 
New Sovereignty, the United States, and not per 
force of any Constitutional provision, she is admit- 
ted into Union with the other States, with the same 
and no more rights of freedom. Sovereignty and 
12 



130 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

Independence. Hence it follows that the institution 
of Slavery cannot be recognized or protected in the 
State or Territory of Texas under the Constitution, 
independently of this Compact. To thus recognize 
and protect it there would be to place her beyond 
the footing of the Original States. They were pro- 
hibited exporting Slaves from the United States into 
such Foreign Territory as Texas then was, and also 
from bringing them from such Territory into the 
United States : And can Congress, under the Consti- 
tution, and in the face of the Laws of the United 
States, made in pursuance thereof, thus import 
Slavery and place it on a better footing than it stood 
in the Original S'tates ? It may indeed pass new or 
extend existing laws over her Territory, now its own 
property, for the protective recognition of Slavery, 
in pursuance of the Compact with Texas before she 
became a member of, or upon her admission into, 
the Union ; and those laws would be valid and effec- 
tive so lo ng as the National Government recognizes 
the validity of the Compact upon which they are 
based. But repeal that Compact, or pronounce it 
void, or once insist that it need not be abided by 
because it is a Compact outside of the Constitution, 
however sacred it may be, and the recognition of 
Slavery and the protection guaranteed to Slave proper- 
ty in the Sate or Territory of Texas, by the laws of 
the United States, is forever at an end. • 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 131 

But this Compact with Texas not only extends, it 
also guarantees the integrity of, the Missouri Com- 
pact : It provides for the formation of a certain 
number of Slave States out of that portion of the 
Territory of Texas lying South of the Missouri 
Compromise Line, and prohibits Slavery in such 
States as may be formed out of the Territory lying 
North of that line. The one provision guarantees 
the extension and protection of Slavery, the other 
restricts and prohibits it. If the Compact for its 
restriction is void because unconstitutional, or 
because made outside of the Constitution ; so also 
is the Compact for its extension and protection void 
for the same reason. This Compact, as I have 
shown, is just as unconstitutional as the Compact 
with Missouri, called the Missouri Compromise : 
Indeed in principle it is one and the same thing. 
It re-enacts and extends the Missouri restriction 
upon Slavery. And if Congress may rightfully repeal 
the latter Compact on the bare ground that there is 
no provision for it in the Constitution, it may upon 
the same principle repeal the other. Whether then 
in the Texas Territory or the Missouri Territory, on 
the South of this line freedom is restricted, on the 
North of it Slavery is restricted. If you remove 
the restriction upon Slavery on the one side, you 
also remove the restriction upon freedom on the 
other side : and freedom becomes freer on both sides. 



132 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

VI. 

I call this the third great National Era of Slavery 
in the United States. There is yet another, and one 
still more novel and interesting, and alike unprovi- 
ded for in the Constitution. This too, originated in 
a contingency unforeseen by the framers of the Con- 
stitution. Not only so, but in a contingency not 
even anticipated by the framers of the Missouri 
Compact, nor by those who promoted the annexa- 
tion and admission of Texas. Hardly dreamed of 
by any man living in the United States when Texas 
was admitted into the Union. I mean the acquisi 
tion of Foreign Territory, and the enlargement of 
the National domain and Sovereignty of the United 
States, by conquest: By the war with Mexico. 
Certainly it will not be claimed that the Constitution 
provided for any such contingency. True, it gives 
to Congress power to declare war, but this was only 
declaratory of the power of Congress in exclusion of the 
States. It is well known that the great aim and inter- 
est of our National Sovereignty at that time was, to 
be at peace with all the world. We were in fact at 
amity with all the Nations of Europe, and especially 
with that Power which held the Sovereignty in 
Mexico. Of course the framers of the Constitution 
did not anticipate, or make any special provision in 
anticipation of, or with reference to, any such emer- 
gency ; certainly not as regarded Slavery. 



4TS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 133 

Hence again, on the acquisition of this New Terri- 
tory the question of the extension and restriction of 
Slavery became one of National interest and impor- 
tance. It affected anew the character of our 
National Sovereignty, the powers of Congress, and 
the relations of the States. Every State and the 
people of every State in the Union were deeply and 
rightfully alive to the issue thus again originated. 
Now too, it was a question of more than ordinary 
National interest and importance. This vast and 
exuberant domain, rich in its mineral, agricultural 
and commercial resources, now for the first time 
since the discovery of America opened to the 
entrance of a Protestant Christianity, with all its ele- 
ments of political and religious freedom, individual 
elevation, and social advancement, was deservedly an 
object of deep and thrilling interest and attention to 
the people of the United States in all parts of the 
Union. It was an object of interest to the Slave as 
well as to the Free States. Each by virtue of its 
membership in the Federal Fraternity, and its title 
to share in the benefits of the common acquisition, 
had a proprietary right in the question of its govern- 
ment and its occupancy. As matters now stood in 
the United States, the Slave-holding States as well 
as the Free States were entitled to a fair considera- 
tion in the settlement as well as the Government of 
this newly acquired domain. Not — as I have said — 
12* 



134 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, * 

by virtue of any Constitutional provision prescribing 
or defining the recognition to be given to the owner- 
ship of Slave property— but by virtue of their being 
parties to the conflict, and participating in the 
struggle, and contributing by men, money, and other 
measures, to its acquisition : Or, as the framers of the 
Constitution would have expressed it, by virtue of 
their being " members of the Union, and joining in 
the measures of the United States " to prosecute the 
war and make the conquest. 

The Constitution could do nothing for them in 
this respect : Congress could do nothing for them in 
pursuance of any power derived under the Constitu- 
tion : Compact, Compromise, must do all that could 
be done. The whole policy of the Government from 
its first formation, the Constitution, and the laws 
made in pursuance of it, all were against the fur- 
ther extension of Slavery, against the restriction 
of freedom. Still, it must be conceded that the 
people of the Slave States were equitably entitled to 
ask that this newly acquired Territory should be 
opened to the entrance of their Slave property, so 
far as the National Sovereignty was concerned ; and 
that being conceded, to a just recognition and pro- 
tection of it. 

Hence originated the Compromise Measures of 
Eighteen hundred and fifty. These were the same 
in theory with those of eighteen hundred and twenty 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 135 

and eighteen hundred and forty-five. They were 
based on the same principles, and cannot be sus- 
tained on any other. So far as they go to extend 
or to recognize Slavery, or to provide for its after 
extension in any portion of that Territory, or to 
give it a protective or political recognition there 
under the laws of the United States ; to make any 
part of it either a place of ownership and escape, or 
of refuge and recaption ; or to enforce the right of 
reclamation within its precincts ; or to make it a 
ratio of representation in Congress; so far they are 
founded on a Compact originating outside of the 
Constitution: A Compact made by the National 
Sovereignty independently of the Constitution, and 
they can neither give or insure to Slavery any recog- 
nition or protection under the Constitution or laws 
of the United States independently of that Compact 
or Compromise. 

The Fugitive Slave Law, so called, of Sep- 
tember, eighteen hundred and fifty, purports to 
be, and is entitled " An Act to amend and supple- 
mentary to, An Act entitled, 'An Act respecting 
fugitives from justice and persons escaping from the 
service of their Masters, approved February twelfth, 
one thousand seven hundred and^ninety-three.' " 

The Sixth Section of this supplementary Act 
provides — " And be it further enacted, etc. ; — that 
when a person held to service or labor in any State 



136 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

or Territory of the United States, has heretofore, or 
shall hereafter, escape into another State or Terri- 
tory, of the United States, the person or persons to 
whom such service or labor may be due, or his, her, 
or their agent, or attorney, duly authorized by power 
of attorney, in writing, acknowledged and certified, 
under the Seal of some legal Officer or Court of the 
State or Territory in which the same may be execu- 
ted, may pursue and reclaim such fugitive." — The 
Act goes on to provide for the enforcement of the 
right of reclamation, and to punish any person 
or persons who may interfere with, so as to 
hinder or prevent, the recaption of such fugitive. 
Z7. S. Slat, at large, p. 462. 

I have already argued that the Law of seventeen 
hundred and ninety-three had no Constitutional 
force on the subject of Slavery beyond the precincts 
of the State and Territorial domain of the United 
States as defined by the treaty with Great Britain. 
This supplementary Act proceeds upon an admission 
of such limitation to the jurisdiction of the original 
Act and the remarks I have already made in reference 
to it might well be applied here. There is no protective 
recognition given to the ownership of Slave proper- 
ty in any Territory of the United States, in the Con- 
stitution : The whole extent of its protective recog- 
nition under any Compact between the Original 
States, limits it to the then State and Territorial 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 137 

domain of the United States. Its after-extension 
and recognition is, and always has been, and always 
must be, the subject of a new Compact, as I have 
shown in the case of the Louisiana Territory ceded 
by France to the United States ; in the case of the 
admission of the State of Louisiana, in the case of 
the State of Missouri, of the State and Territory of 
Texas, and now in the case of the States and Terri- 
tories comprehended, or to be comprehended, within 
the acquisition from Mexico. 

The Compromise Measures of eighteen hundred 
and fifty, establishing a Territorial Government over 
Utah and New Mexico, admitting California into 
the Union, and enacting the Fugitive Slave Law, 
were all one political compact, made by the National 
Sovereignty with the people and States of the Union 
in relation to this newly acquired Territory, the 
most important parts of which related to the further 
extension, recognition, and protection of Slavery. 
It was a Compact, I repeat, outside of the Constitu- 
tion ; and made by a Sovereignty not known origi- 
nally to the Constitution. Instead of being composed 
of Thirteen it was now composed of Twenty-Seven 
States. Five of these States were formed out of 
Territory which was foreign to the United States at 
the time the Constitution was adopted. Territory 
unknown to the Constitution. Territory purchased 
of a foreign power. Hence, the then existing Na- 



138 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

tional Sovereignty was not a Sovereignty created or 
recognized by, or deriving its Supremacy over this 
Territory under, the Constitution. Its acts, done in 
its Sovereign Capaciiy, must therefore be taken to 
be done independently of, however they may be made 
conformable to, the Constitution. So far then as this 
act of eighteen hundred and fifty, called the Fugitive 
Slave Law, with tlie other measures of this Compro- 
mise Compact, recognize or extend Slavery, or guaran- 
tee its protective recognition in any State or Terri- 
tory of the United States, it is done by virtue of the 
New Compact and not under the Constitution. And 
it is unconstitutional in the same sense, and to the 
same e'xtent, that the Missouri Compromise was 
unconstitutional. Though the act adopts the phrase- 
ology of the act of seventeen hundred and ninety- 
three, and speaks of persons held to labor or service 
in any State or Territory of the United States, 
escaping into another State or Territory of the 
United States, still these words have now a more 
extended meaning and reference than they had, or 
were designed to have, when the original act was 
passed. The places of ownership and escape are 
other and different. The places of refuge and 
recaption are also other and different. The Act is 
clearly unconstitutional, and it cannot be sustained 
or enforced by virtue of any authority for it derived 
under the Constitution ; though it may be, and must 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 139 

be, if at all, by virtue of the Sovereign Power 
exercised in the " Compromise Measjiires " adopted 
as a political compact by the existing National 
Sovereignty in eighteen hundred and fifty. 

I have thus traced the History of Slavery in the 
United States, in its National aspects and relations, 
with a view to develop and define the nature and 
extent of its National recognition and protection. I 
have endeavored to do so without any feeling of 
prejudice or partiality, either for or against the insti- 
tution of Slavery in itself ; and without any sectional 
animosity or partizan bias. I have shown that by 
and under the Constitution it was recognized in the 
Original States in the apportionment of taxes, in the 
ratio of representation in Congress, and in the 
guarantee of protection given to the ownership of 
slave property by providing for its reclamation in 
those States ; and, by the Ordinance of seventeen 
hundred and eighty-seven, in the Original Territorial 
domain of the United States. I have shown, that 
beyond these limits its recognition and protection 
have been a matter of further compact between the 
States composing the National Sovereignty and the 
people inhabiting in the New Territory, however 
acquired, when it became a part of the domain of 
the United States, or was erected into a State and 
admitted into Union with the General Confederacy of 



140 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

States. That even conceding that the admission 
of any such New State into the Union as a Slave 
State "on an equal footing with the Original 
States," guaranteed the recognition and protection 
of Slavery therein, in the same sense and to the 
same extent as in the Original States under the Con- 
stitution ; it was still a restrictive recognition of it, 
and was based upon conditions and stipulations for its 
restriction which could not be violated without can- 
celing the guarantee of recognition and protection. 
I propose, now, to consider the subject under the 
repeal of the restriction upon Slavery contained in 
the Compact for the admission of Missouri into 
the Union as a Slave State, commonly called the 
Missouri Compromise. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPACT. 
I. 

The National Sovereignty of the United States, 
by compact with which the State of Missouri was 
created, and admitted into the Union as a Slave 
State, was composed, as I have said, of the Thirteen 
Original States ; the New States of Maine, Vermont, 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 141 



Illinois, Indiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, 
Tennessee, and Ohio, formed out of Territory be- 
longing to the United States, and a part of the 
Original States upon the adoption of the Constitu- 
tion ; and the State of Louisiana, formed out of a 
Territory subsequently purchased from France, and 
foreign to the domain and jurisdiction of the United 
States when the Constitution was adopted. This, I 
have observed, was a National Sovereignty different 
from that established by the Constitution, or contem- 
plated in any of its provisions. No compact, there- 
fore, for the admission of a New State framed out 
of such newly acquired Territory into this Confed- 
eracy, on whatever terms, could be made by vir- 
tue of any provision in the Constitution. Such 
compact must derive all its force and efficiency 
from a source outside of the Constitution, and 
that is, from the supremacy of this New Na- 
tional Sovereignty. Such, I repeat again, was the 
Missouri Compact ; and so far as it recognized 
Slavery, or guaranteed protection to the ownership 
of Slave property by the Laws of the United States, 
in the State of Missouri, or in any State or Territory 
in the existing Confederacy which was compre- 
hended in the provisions of the Compact ; it also 
guaranteed the non-existence and non-extension of 
Slavery beyond the line of thirty-six degrees thirty 

minutes. North Latitude. Upon consideration of this 
13 



142 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

latter guarantee it was that Missouri was admitted 
into the Union as a Slave State, " on an equal foot- 
ing with the Original States in all respects what- 
ever." 

I have shown also, that so far as Slavery was 
concerned this Compact comprehended three things. 
1. The National recognition of Slavery in Missouri 
as a State Institution. 2. The guarantee of protec- 
tion to the ownership of Slave property therein, 
under the Laws of the United States, by giving to 
her and extending to the other States of the Union, 
the right to reclaim fugitives from service escaping 
into that portion of the said New Territory lying 
beyond thirtj^-six degrees thirty minutes, North Lati- 
tude. 3. It gives to Missouri the right of a repre- 
sentation in Congress apportioned on her Slave pop- 
ulation. 

The repeal of the Compact in relation to Slavery 
violated the conditions upon which all these guaran- 
tees were based, and canceled the right to them. 
I say, politically and as matter of law as well as 
of fact, it violated the condition upon which Slavery 
was recognized in the State of Missouri by the 
National Sovereignty, — upon which the protection 
of her citizens in the ownership of Slave property 
was guaranteed to them, — and upon which her 
representation in Congress was to be based upon her 
Slave population. In other words, the mutuality of 
the Compact was destroyed, and it became thence- 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 143 

forth of no further binding obligation upon the 
parties to it, so far at least as the recognition and 
protection of Slavery is concerned. Her slaves may 
escape into other States, or into the said Territory 
North of the compromise line, or into any other 
Territory of the United States, and where is the 
right to reclaim them ? It is not in the Constitution. 
It cannot be claimed by virtue of the broken and 
destroyed Compact. It is utterly gone. No law 
can be made or extended by Congress to enforce its 
reclamation in pursuance of the Constitution, for 
there exists no right of recaption under it. Nor can 
Congress pass a law to enforce it by virtue of the 
Compact, for that is repealed, and the laws made or 
extended in pursuance of it are of no legal or bind- 
ing force whatever. 

Conceding that her being admitted into the Union 
" on an equal footing with the Original States 
in all respects whatever," brought Missouri within 
the reach of the Constitutional provision guaranteeing 
the right of reclamation to the ownership of Slave prop- 
erty in the Original States, still the question recurs, 
what was the condition upon which she was thus ad- 
mitted ? Was it not the restriction, or perpetual exclu- 
sion, of Slavery from the Territory North of thirty-six 
degrees thirty minutes North Latitude ? "Was it not 
said, she might come into the Union as a Slave State 
"on an equal footing with the Original States," if 



144 SLAVERY 'in THE UNITED STATES, 

she would incorporate into her State Constitution a 
clause prohibiting the further extension of Slavery 
therein, and providing for its total abolition within a 
given time ? And the Compromise, was it not, we 
will agree to admit you as a Slave State "on an 
equal footing with the Original States in all respects 
whatever," if you, the people of Missouri, will unite 
with us, the people and States now composing the 
Sovereignty of the United States, in a solemn stipu- 
lation that Slavery shall be forever prohibited, or 
excluded, beyond a certain limit, as specified in the 
eighth section of the Compact ? That was the condi- 
tion accepted by Missouri and by the people and the 
States then composing the National Sovereignty. It 
was a condition imposed on the government of the 
said State and Territory for all time, by the power 
and Sovereignty which purchased the Territory and 
held supremacy over it. That condition being bro- 
ken, or cancelled by the repeal of the Compact, is 
not the whole so far forth destroyed ? Is not the 
privilege, or benefit, of a position in the Union " on 
an equal footing with the Original States," so far as 
Slavery is concerned, taken away ? How then is the 
existence of Slavery, or the ownership of Slave prop- 
erty, in the State of Missouri, to be recognized or 
protected under the Constitution, or by any Law of 
the United States, anywhere ? It cannot be. 

It is evident that the Compact under whicli Mis- 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 145 

souri was thus admitted into the Union as a Slave 
State, was not a mere Congressional enactment or 
Law of the National Legislature, an ordinary statute 
repealable at will. There was a mutuality of inter- 
est and obligation in its provisions and stipulations, 
and in the work *it wrought and was designed to 
accomplish, which gave to it a more permanent 
character and a more sacredly enduring reference. 
It was a Compact between the people of the Slave- 
holding States, and the people of the Free States 
then composing the National Sovereignty, with the 
State of Missouri, and' with each other, and withthe 
people who should thereafter inhabit in the said Ter- 
ritory, for the recognition and protection of Slavery 
on the one hand and for its restriction on the other, 
in Territory where it was not known to, or recog- 
nized by, the Constitution. Or, in more modern 
phrase, for its extension on the one side and its 
abolition on the other : And although it necessarily 
assumed the form of a Legislative enactment, as did 
also the Ordinance of 1787, it was nevertheless, 
like that Ordinance, something more than this. It 
was a Sovereign and National PoHtical Compact 
though in form a Congressional Act : So far as it 
guaranteed recognition and protection to Slavery in 
the State of Missouri under the Constitution or by 
the Laws of the United States ; or in any portion of 
the Territory which was the svibject of Compact ; 
13* 



146 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

just SO far it guaranteed its non-existence and non- 
extension, aye its perpetual abolition, beyond the 
Compromise Line. 

The legal effect of the Repeal therefore was the de- 
struction of the whole Compact in relation to Slavery. 
Its necessary and legitimate operation in the State 
of Missouri was, to cancel the guarantee of recog- 
nition and protection which it gave to Slavery and 
the ownership of Slave property, by the Laws of the 
United States. 

But again, if the National recognition and protec- 
tion of Slavery in Missouri is claimed under the 
provision of admission " on an equal footing with 
the Original States in all respects whatever," I ask, 
what was the peculiar footing on which those States 
stood in relation to it ? The Constitution provides 
as to them. 

Article IV. Sec. 2. "No person held to service 
or labor in one State, under the Laws thereof, 
escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any 
law or regulation therein, be discharged from such 
service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim 
of the party to whom such labor or service may be 
due." 

If this is all the recognition given to the owner- 
ship of Slave property in the State of Missouri, by 
virtue of her being thus admitted into the Union, it 
clearly does not provide for • the reclamation of a 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 147 



fugitive escaping into any Territory of the United 
States. If the Territory is made a place of recap- 
tion at all, by virtue of her equality with the Origi- 
nal States, it can only be under the provision 
contained in the Ordinance of 1787, and that relates 
only to the Territory, or States formed out of the 
Territory, North- West of the River Ohio and East of 
the Mississippi River. I have shown that this Ordi- 
nance was adopted as to the Original States when it 
was made conformable to the Constitution ; and 
thereafter again and again declared perpetual on the 
admission of New States, by the requisition that 
their Constitution should be in conformity with its 
provisions. 

Conceding, therefore, that the Compact of admis- 
sion " on an equal footing with the Original States," 
guaranteed the recognition of Slavery and protection 
to the ownership of slave property in the State of 
Missouri to this extent, I ask again, upon what con- 
dition ? Why on no other than the condition that that 
portion of Territory lying north of thirty-six degrees 
thirty minutes, North Latitude, and not comprehend- 
ed within her proposed limits, sliould be forever pro- 
hibited to Slavery and consecrated irrevocably to 
freedom. To this the honor and good faith of the 
National Sovereignty, and the honor and good faith 
of every State then composing the Sovereignty called 



148 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

the United States, and of the people and State of 
Missouri, were solemnly and lastingly pledged. 

This then is the condition, the alternative consid- 
eration, which has been violated by the Repeal. Of 
course the reciprocal condition is abrogated with it. 
Though Missouri may not thereby be deprived of 
her Membership in the Confederacy, yet Slavery is 
not recognized there, and cannot be protected there 
by the Laws of the United States. No law for its pro- 
tective recognition can be made, as I have said before, 
pursuant to the Constitation. And, the Compact 
being repealed, its protection cannot be enforced 
under any law which was made, or whose provisions 
were extended, pursuant to the Compact. 

Further, it must be observed that the Eighth Sec- 
tion of the Compact, which contains the Compromise, 
contains also the Proviso which specifies and defines 
the extent of the right of reclamation as guaranteed 
by the Compact, and that does not even mention the 
State of Missouri. It reads — " Provided always, 
That any person escaping into the same " (the Terri- 
tory North of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes. North 
Latitude,) " from whom service or labor is lawfully 
claimed, in any other State ^ or Territory of the 
United States, such fugitive may be lawfully re- 
claimed," etc. 

A strict construction of this phraseology would 
seem entirely to exclude " the State contemplated by 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 149 

this Act" from the terms of the Proviso, and to 
extend the right of reclaiming a fugitive slave to 
every other State but the proposed State of Missouri. 
It certainly extends the right of reclamation as 
to the other States beyond the Constitutional limit ; 
and is an admission, or declaration, that it did not 
extend there independently of this proviso, even as 
regards the other and Original States, or Territory 
of the United States. 

TJie Repeal of the section involves also the repeal 
of the Proviso, and the protective recognition, or 
right of reclamation therein given and guaranteed, 
is taken away not only from Missouri but also from 
every other State or Territory embraced in the pro- 
vision. But of this, more hereafter. 

II. 

This whole work was written before the opinion of 
the Supreme Court was made known in the Dred 
Scott case. Having carefully reviewed it in connec- 
tion -with that opinion, I now propose to incorporate 
the views therein expressed by the Court, into the 
remainder of my argument. 

I have given the case a careful examination. 
Every line I have written and every point I have 
advanced is sustained by the opinion of the Supreme 
Court as uttered by Chief Justice Taney in that case. 
In its general aspects, and in its bearing upon this 



150 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

subject, it is a remarkable and vastly important opin- 
ion, vastly more important for Freedom than for 
Slavery. Yet its import seems not to be fully com- 
prehended either by the advocates or the opponents 
of Slavery extension, whether at the North or South. 
I thought the repeal of the Missouri Compromise 
was an unfortunate measure for the slave interest. 
I thought the Kansas-Nebraska- Act was a great bill 
for freedom, as great as any ever enacted by 
Congress, on account of this very repealing cl^tuse. 
I think this opinion of the Supreme Court is more 
so. I think when it comes to be carefully consider- 
ed, it will be regarded by all parties as the most 
fatal blow that has ever been given to Slavery in the 
United States. And if persisted in in its practical 
applications must put an end to its further exten- 
sion, perhaps to its very existence under the protec- 
tive recognition of the National Sovereignty, outside 
of the original precincts of the United States. 

The most important part of it as it applies to my 
argument, is the rule laid down by the Court for the 
construction of the Constitution. The Chief Jus- 
tice — Case p. 32 — speaking of the Constitution, says: 
" While it remains unaltered, it must be construed 
now, as it was understood at the time of its adoption. 
It is not only the same in words, but the same in 
meaning, and delegates the same powers and secures 
the same rights to the citizen ; and as long as it 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 151 

continues to exist in its present form, it speaks not 
only the same words, but ivith the same meaning and 
intent with which it spoke when it came from the 
hands of its framers, and was voted on and adopted 
by the people of the United States': any other rule of 
construction would abrogate the Judicial character 
of this Court, and make it the mere reflex of the 
popular opinion or passion of the day." To all of 
which I have already assented. , 

And again, on page 38, applying this rule, he says — 
" The counsel for the Plaintiff has laid much stress 
upon that Article of the Constitution which confers 
on Congress the power ' to dispose of and make all 
needful rules and regulations respecting the Terri- 
tory of the United States.' — But, in the judgment of 
the Court, that provision has no bearing on the pres- 
ent controversy, and the power there given, what- 
ever it may be, is confined, and is intended to be 
confined, to the Territory which at that time belonged 
to, or was claimM by, the United States, and was 
'ivithin their boundaries as settled by the Treaty with 
Great Britain ; and can have no influence upon a 
Territory afterivards acquired from a Foreign Gov- 
ernment, It was a special provision for a known 
and particular Territory, and to meet a present emer- 
gency, and nothing more^ 

And again — on page 42 — in refererence to the 



162 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

same provision he says — "It applied only to the 
property which the States held in common at that 
time : and has no reference whatever to any Terri- 
tory^ or other property, which the New Sovereignty 
might afterwards itself acquired — '' It does not 
speak of any Territory, nor of Territories, but uses 
language which, according to its legitimate mean- 
ing, points to a particular thing. The power is 
given only in relation to the Territory of the United 
States, that is, a Territory then in existence, and 
then known and claimed as the Territory of the 
United States." 

The rule of constructioix here laid down and 
adopted by the Court, is of course general, and is 
applicable to all the provisions of the Constitution 
in like cases. What is here said of the power of 
Congress in relation to the Territory of the United 
States, is also true of the power of Congress relative 
to the admission of New States formed out of it 
into this Union. The power to admit them is given 
only in relation to " a known and particular thing, 
then in existence, and within the then limits of the 
United States." It could not, by any possible inten- 
tion, be supposed or construed to relate to New Ter- 
ritory, or New States formed out of '' New Territory 
which the New Sovereignty might afterwards, itself, 
acquire of a Foreign Power," whether by purchase 
or by conquest. Hence, finding myself sustained by 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 153 



this ruling of the Supreme Court, I re-affirm that 
the admission of a New State formed out of 
such New Territory, must necessarily be a matter of 
com^Dact between the people inhabiting in such Ter- 
ritory and the New Sovereignty, outside of the 
Constitution. 

The same is true, also, of all the provisions of the 
Constitution which recognize the existence of Sla- 
very, and protect the ownership of Slave property. 
They have reference to " a known and particular 
thing then in existence," and " within the limits of 
the then State and Territorial domain " of the 
Sovereignty called the United States. They could 
not, either in phraseology or intention, be supposed 
to relate to Slavery in Foreign Territory, or in New 
States formed out of Foreign Territory, " which the 
New Sovereignty might afterward itself acquire." 
For, on this subject as well as every other, as chief 
Justice Taney says — "The Constitution must be con- 
strued now as it was understood at the time of its 
adoption. It speaks not only in the same words, but 
with the same meaning and intent with which it 
spoke when it came from the hands of its framers, 
and was voted on and adopted by the people of the 
United States." The recognition of Slavery there 
given, and the protection it guarantees to the owner- 
ship of Slave property, " whatever it may be, is 
confined, and was intended to be confined to" Sla- 
14 



154 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

very in " the Territory which at that time belonged 
to, or was claimed by, the United States, and was 
within their boundaries as settled by the Treaty with 
Great Britain, and can have no relation to " Slavery 
in '' Territory afterward acquired from a Foreign ' 
Government." 

Hence I insist, that my position in relation to 
Slavery beyond these original precincts of the United 
States, is sustained by the rule of construction laid 
down and adopted in this decision of the Supreme 
Court. It is not recognized or protected be- 
yond that limit under the Constitution. If it is 
recognized or protected there at all, it must be, and 
can only be, by virtue of the Compromise or New 
Compact of admission. If this Compact is pro- 
nounced void because not within the jurisdiction of 
the Constitution. If no valid compact on the sub- 
ject of Slavery can be made outside of the Constitu- 
tion by the New Sovereignty, the United States, in 
reference to New Territory, or States formed out of 
New Territory " which it has since itself acquired," 
then the whole theory of the extension and protec- 
tive recognition of it since the adoption of the 
Constitution falls to the ground : Slavery gains 
nothing by the Missouri Compact : It gains nothing 
by the Compact for the annexation and admission of 
Texas : It gains nothing under the " Compromise 
Measures," or the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 155 



All these Compacts, so far as they relate to Sla- 
very, are void. All the concessions, stipulations, 
privileges, and agreements, which they contain in 
reference to it, whether express or imphed, present 
or prospective, are void. The recognition and pro- 
tection which they guarantee to it in those New 
States and New Territories which the New Sover- 
eignty has since itself acquired, being outside of the 
original precincts of the United States, are out of 
the pale of the Constitution, unrecognized by its 
provisions, unlawful, and void. What a fell swoop 
is embraced in tliis decision! All the political 
advantages given to Slavery, and all the protection 
conceded, or sought to be conceded to the owner- 
ship of Slave property wherever it has extended 
itself, or seeks to extend itself, by virtue of any of 
these Compacts or Compromises, are, in law, void. 
Could anything more serviceable to freedom, or 
more disastrous to Slavery in the United States, be 
decreed by the Supreme Court ? 

It is not my province, nor is it my aim or my desire, 
to war with this decision. As a matter of opinion 
merely, I differ with it in some of its aspects. But 
as now a matter of law, the Supreme Law of the land, 
I look at it as such, and with a view to determine its 
legitimate results on this one subject of Slavery in its 
Constitutional relations, I commend it to the more 
careful and candid consideration of men of all par- 



166 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

ties in all sections of the country. In my own 
judgment, if carried out in its legitimate application 
to all Compromises on this subject, it is a death- 
blow to the' further extension and protective recogni- 
tion of Slavery in the United States. Both the Free 
and the Slave-holding States, both the North and the 
South, I confidently predict, will yet see it so : 

III. 

Let us look back, for one moment, and see what 
has been the effect of the repeal of the Missouri 
Compact so far as Slavery is concerned, and then 
couple the repeal and its effect with this decision of 
the Supreme Court, and we may form some idea of 
its ultimate legitimate tendencies in favor of free- 
dom. 

To recapitulate briefly the circumstances which 
originated this Compromise Compact. Missouri, a 
portion of the New Territory which the New Sover- 
eignty had " itself acquired " from France after 
the adoption of the Constitution, applies to Congress 
for permission to become a State, and to be admit- 
ted into the Confederacy as such. The objection is 
raised, Congress has no power imder the Constitu- 
tion to legislate Slavery into, or to recognize by pro- 
tecting its ownership in, any State or Territory of the 
United States beyond the limit or jurisdiction which 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 157 

was comprehended in its provisions at the time of its 
adoption. Here was a then foreign Territory how- 
ever, acquired subsequently to that period. A new 
and very grave question is presented in relation to it, 
involving, as I have said, interests as sacred, and 
results as momentous and extensive as any which 
had ever agitated the Nation. Those who were 
instrumental in framing the Constitution had not 
provided for any such emergency, for the simple 
reason, if you please, that they had not anticipated 
it. They had not thought, desired, or intended, that 
Slavery would or should be a permanent institution 
among us. It had increased, however, and was 
rapidly extending beyond its original limits, and was 
covering Territory now the property of the New 
Sovereignty. From this New Territory, unknown to 
the Constitution, and " not known or claimed as the 
property of the United States when the Constitution 
was adopted," it now comes up, knocking at the 
doors of Congress asking that its lawful exist- 
ence may be recognized, by giving it an increased 
representation in the national Legislature, and that 
its ownership may be protected by throwing around it 
the shield of a national Guardianship, under the laws 
of the United States. • It was pretty generally conceded 
that this could not be done under a strict construc- 
tion of the Constitution : No, nor even under the 
most liberal construction of it. Hence, in that 
14* 



158 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

same spirit of mutual concession and conciliation 
which brought about the ratification of that instru- 
ment, and in the exercise of that Sovereign right to 
govern which is the inseparable accompaniment of 
the right to acquire Territory, it was proposed to 
Compromise the difficulty by a new and independent 
compact between the States composing the New 
Sovereignty, and the people inhabiting in the pro- 
posed State of Missouri, and the people thereafter to 
inhabit in the said New Territory. By this Com- 
pact the Constitutional difficulty was waived on the 
one hand, and on the other, in consideration thereof? 
a large portion of the same New Territory, out of 
which the proposed State was to be erected, was con- 
secrated irrevocably to freedom, in these words : — 

" Section Eighth, Resolved, That in all that Ter- 
ritory ceded by France to the United States, under the 
name of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six de- 
grees thirty minutes. North Latitude, not included 
within the limits of the State contemplated by this 
Act, Slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise 
than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party 
shall have been duly convicted, shall be, and is here- 
by, forever prohibited. Provided always. That any 
person escaping into the same, from whom labor or 
service is lawfully claimed in any other State of Ter- 
ritory, in the United States, such fugitive may be 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 159 



lawfully reclaimed, and conveyed to the person 
claiming his, or her, labor or service, as aforesaid." 

The Constitutional objection, therefore, which was 
made the basis of the Repeal, and which has been 
affirmed by the Supreme Court, it must be observed, 
was the very thing which originated the Compromise. 
The crisis, and the circumstances which gave birth 
to it, could not possibly have been met in any other 
or better way. There was as things then were a 
virtual necessity for it ; otherwise Missouri could not 
and probably would not have been admitted into the 
Union as a Slave State : And every other Slave State 
in the Union was directly benefited by the protection 
guaranteed to the ownership of Slave property in the 
provision with reference to fugitives from service. 

"The Constitution," says Chief Justice Taney 
again, — Dred Scot Case, page 45, — "has always been 
remarkable for the felicity of its arrangement of dif- 
ferent subjects, and the perspicuity and appropriate- 
ness of the language it uses," and I may say of the 
clause which relates to fugitives from labor or ser- 
vice, as he says of the clause which relates to the 
power of Congress "to make all needful rules and 
regulations respecting the Territory, or other prop- 
erty, of the United States," "if that clause is con- 
strued to extend to" Slavery in "Territory acquired 
by the present government from a Foreign Nation 
outside of the limits of any charter from the British 



160 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

Government to a Colony, it would be difficult to say 
why it was deemed necessary " to extend the right and 
power to reclaim a fugitive from service by this 
proviso in the Missouri Compact. 

But this Compromise is repealed, cancelled. 
What then? Why the parties to the compact of 
which it was a part are necessarily released from all 
obligations whatever which it imposed upon them. 
While the repeal takes from Slavery all that was 
thereby guaranteed to it, it also restores to freedom 
all that it thereby gave up. While it removes the 
restriction put upon Slavery beyond the line of 
thirty-six degrees thirty minutes. North Latitude, it 
also withdraws the protective recognition given to it 
by the Proviso with reference to the fugitive escaping 
beyond the same line : At the same time it also opens 
to the entrance and occupancy of freedom. South of 
that line, a vast Territory from which it would have 
been otherwise excluded. It presents the State of 
Missouri as having extended and planted Slavery 
where she had no Constitutional right to extend it, 
and places her beyond the power of Congress, under 
the Constitution, to recognize it, or to protect her cit- 
izens in the ownership of it. It abolishes the Com- 
pact which threw the shield of a National recognition 
over Slavery within her own limits not only, but it also 
deprives her, as well as every other Slave State in 
the Union, of the right to reclaim fugitives from 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 161 



service escaping into any part of the Territory North 
of the Compromise line, or at least abrogates the 
charter which gave to the right of recaption any 
efficiency in law. The Repeal does all this. It 
does more. It has a further relation which I have 
before intimated, but which has not been much con- 
sidered either by the friends or the opponents of the 
measure, and not at all by the Supreme Court. One 
too which has already brought into life and forceful 
activity a mass of influence against Slavery, which 
mere opposition to the institution as such could not 
of itself have originated. 

There is, and there always has been, in the minds 
of a large portion, if not all of the people of the Free 
States, a difficulty on the subject of these Compacts, 
which does not touch the question of the right or the 
wrong of holding human beings in involuntary servi- 
tude, or Slavery. That is — the right of representa- 
tion in Congress apportioned on a Slave population 
in the Slave-holding States. If, say they, human 
beings are to be treated as property for the purpose 
of holding them in bondage, why treat them as per- 
sons for the mere sake of increasing the power of 
Slave owners to extend and perpetuate Slavery ? If 
the claim of representation is based upon their char- 
acter as property, why not establish a similar basis 
of representation on property in the Free States? 
If, on the other hand, it is based on their character 



162 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

as persons, as human beings susceptible of acquiring 
rights, and holding interests in the body politic which 
may be the subject of Legislation, why not treat them 
as such and give them the right to choose their own 
representatives? Where, say they, is the law of 
right, or justice, or equity, upon which this ratio of 
representation is conceded to Slave States formed 
out of New Territory " acquired by the New Sover- 
eignty since the adoption of the Constitution?" I 
answer them, nowhere, unless it is the creation of the 
Compromise or Compact of admission. It must 
originate in the "equal footing with the Original 
States in all respects whatever," provided and guar- 
anteed by that Compact. In this it does originate, 
and by this it must be limited and defined. It is the 
Compact that gives to Slavery a legal recognition 
within the limits of the States which were parties to 
it, and the New State created by it, which it had not 
and could not have under the Constitution. The 
Constitution confers no powers upon Congress which 
authorized or warranted it. The advocates of the 
Repeal, both in and out of Congress, insisted upon 
this. The Supreme Court have so decided. There- 
fore, whatever recognition is given to Slavery under 
the New Compact, must derive all its efficiency from 
the exercise of that Sovereign power to govern inci- 
dent to the Sovereign power to acquire New Terri- 
tory, independently of the Constitution. There must 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 163 

be a New Compact outside of the Constitution, even 
if it can only be made by a Compromise. Hence 
the irresistible conclusion, that Slavery has been 
extended, exists, has rights, is recognized and pro- 
tected, beyond the limits of the original Constitu- 
tional jurisdiction of the United States, only by 
virtue of enactments of Congress brought into exist- 
ence under political compacts between the Free and 
the Slave States composing the then existing Sover- 
eignty, and the State created and admitted into the 
Union under such Compact. 

These Ordinances or enactments involving a mutu- 
ality of obligation, and containing specific stipula- 
tions and conditions in relation to Slavery, are in the 
nature of irrevocable political compacts between all 
of the States of the Union, under whose general 
sovereignty the guarantee of its recognition in the 
New State " on the same footing as in the Original 
States" is established. The Repeal of any one of 
these Compacts, or Ordinances, weakens the obliga- 
tion which upholds all the rest. The judgment of 
the Supreme Court pronouncing them unconstitu- 
tional, and therefore of no binding force in relation to 
Slavery, cancels that obligation. 

The repeal and the decision, therefore, combine to 
take from the institution of Slavery not only the 
legal protection it acquired by the Compact, but also 
all the advantages it gained by being thereby placed 



164 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

"on an equal footing with" Slavery in "the Original 
States," among which by far the most important was 
and is the right of representation based on a Slave 
population. They do more, they give to the people 
of the Free States a right to insist that Slavery shall 
no longer be recognized, or the ownership of Slave 
property protected by the general government, where 
it has been established or extended, or proposes to be, 
by virtue of any of these Compacts. This ratio of 
representation based on a slave population, originally 
inherent and peculiar only in the Original States, 
falls to the ground in the State of Missouri. The 
same is true of Slavery in every other State where 
it has been, or shall be, permitted to plant itself inde- 
pendently of the Constitution, and wherever it is 
recognized and protected under the Laws of the 
United States in pursuance of any such Compromise 
or Compact ; the Supreme Court also itself being 
judge. 

IV. 

It was in these aspects of it that the Repeal of the 
Missouri Compact in 1854, originated and combined 
a power against Slavery in the United States which 
was all but irresistible. Theretofore the existence 
of Slavery among us had been disturbed, never really 
or effectively threatened or endangered, by men call- 
ing themselves " Abolitionists," " Anti-Slavery Men," 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 165 

"Liberty-Men," " Free-Soilers," etc. No two of 
these parties had ever been able to unite with each 
other for any efficient purpose. Each held opinions 
and principles in other respects divers from the 
rest. And therefore each measurably weakened or 
counteracted the ability of the other to accomplish 
anything against Slavery. Besides this antagonism 
between themselves, their aims were more power- 
fully hindered by the great body of men in the Free 
States, who felt bound to sustain these Compromise 
Compacts irrespective of their own private opinions 
on the subject of Slavery. The operation of this 
Repeal, therefore, ignoring as it did the binding force 
of the Compromises, or the principle which gave them 
their binding force, was to unite all these discordant 
factions and the more conservative opponents of 
Slavery in one " party of opposition " to its further 
progress, and if need be to its actual existence. 
Many of them never loved it and rejoiced at heart in 
the removal of those obligations which smothered and 
fettered their repugnance to it. Many more came 
up to the conflict against it, inflamed by an honest 
indignation at so ruthless a ^dolation of so solemn a 
Compact. Some did it from principle, some from 
motives of resentment, and some with political aims ; 
while all seemed to feel that the moral sense of every 
well-instructed mind in the community, yea of the 
whole civilized world, was with them. 
15 



166 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

But this fearful flame even, gathered fresh fuel 
from the singular inconsistency of the advocates of 
Slavery. While repealing one Compromise and 
abandoning the principle which alone secured protec- 
tion to the owership of Slave property escaping into 
the New Territory acquired by the New Sovereignty 
after 'the Constitution was adopted ; they enforce its 
protection under a precisely similar Compromise, 
made to accomplish a similar object in such New 
Territory, viz., under the Fugitive Slave Law of 
1850. This Law as I have shown was the creation 
of a Compromise no more and no less sacred or 
obligatory than the Missouri Compact. Then, for 
the first time in my life, I trembled for our National 
Union. I wrote to a Southern friend, under date 
May twenty-second, 1854, as follows : 

"I have said that the Repeal of the Missouri Compro- 
mise is fatal to Slavery, and gave you the reasons for my 
opinion. But simultaneously with this repeal I hear that 
the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 — the creation of a simi- 
lar compromise — is being enforced in favor of Slavery in 
Boston. I am more than ever confident in my judgment 
of the effect and operation of that repeal. The Repeal 
itself, I have claimed, is fatal to the Slave interest. It is 
made more surely so by this hot and inconsistent haste of 
Slavery to clutch her victim. Better to have lost a thou- 
sand slaves than to have done this. The crisis reveals 
how much of human sympathy one human being doomed 
to involuntary servitude can awaken ; and if one, how 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 167 

much more the thousands which, in the minds of our 
Northern demagogues and fanatics at least, now groan 
under the scourge and the lash ? 

" But, my friend, this fugitive, — mark me, — this fugi- 
tive will be delivered up. Accept, slaveholder, your trem- 
bling captive. 

* The Law allows it, the Court awards it.' 

" We are a law-loving and a law-abiding people. In 
this you did well, to accept it as a guarantee for the safety 
of your property even in human flesh and bones, as well 
as of your own personal protection. Let the example teach 
you in like manner to respect the Law, should it hereafter 
exercise itself in protecting such as it now delivers over to 
your arbitrary will. But, before you go, permit me to say 
to you, that you have made a fearful experiment. A 
people innately and by education hostile to Slavery, 
goaded almost to madness in their rage at such an exhibi- 
tion of it, and restrained from a violent' outburst of passion 
only by the might and the majesty of the Law, is a haz- 
ardous encounter for you to have ventured upon at such a 
time as this, and may well make you, even while triumph- 
ant, tremble. For from the terrific restraint thus imposed 
by the Law who can calculate the re-bound, when this 
same people turn and look iJpon Slavery where the Law 
which protected it is taken away. And if you persist in 
it of this you may rest assured, that the Laws which now 
recognize or protect it outside of the Constitution will 
soon be written down — rasa tabula. 

" 1 see it and hear it everywhere I turn. The mer- 
chant forgets his business, the artizan his trade, the 



168 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

mechanic his shop, the laborer his tools, the operative his 
work, and eyen the politician his partizanshij), and all unite 
in denouncing Slavery. The looker-on may at once see 
that something vital is at stake. That there is something 
more than ordinarily powerful agitating the deeper feelings 
of the community. It agitates the pulpit, the bench, the 
bar, and our Halls of Legislation. Men who never before 
held parley with their fellows on the subject of Slavery, 
now agitate it, denounce it, and swear interminable war 
against it. Shrewd politicians begin to make hostility to 
it a basis for calculating their own chances for future ele- 
vation. Commercial men and editors of newspapers, in 
our seaboard an4 inland cities, are estimating in dollars 
and cents their interest in the agitation. Land-speculators 
are sending forward their agents to secure for the more 
profitable occupancy of freedom, the yet unvisited soil so 
wrongfully thrown open to the hostile occupancy of Slave- 
ry. The more bitter and subtle enemies of Slavery have 
already surveyed the most desirable and expeditious route 
to this virgin Territory for their ' Underground Rail Road,* 
and we almost hear the shout of its passengers mingling 
with the thunder of its cars, as they are borne on to 
the home of freedom. The tread of her more orderly and 
disciplined armies sounds grateful in the ears of the 
oppressed, and the noise of the clanking chains as they fall 
from the unfettered limbs of the bond-man, is hushed 
amid the exulting and jubilant poeans of the free. 

" As for myself, my friend, you know I am not, and 
never was an " Abolitionist," or an " Anti-Slavery-Man," 
or a " Free-Soiler." I was educated in the old fashioned 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 169 

Protestant dogma that " The Bible is the only rule of 
Faith to man," and I retain enough of that venerable 
notion to decline sitting in judgment over my fellow-man as 
to the right or the wrong of holding human beings in 
bondage. I have, moreover, been among Slavery and 
have seen it in all its aspects and conditions, and I confess 
to an entire softening down of my prejudices against it. 
But were I the most inveterate and determined abolitionist 
in the world — aside from the violation of plighted faith 
which it involves — I would rejoice in the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise. I would rejoice in it, not only on 
account of the source whence it originated, but also and 
more for the perfect looseness with which it throws open 
the Slavery agitation without any fault or agency of ours. 
And I should regard it as a demonstration of the presence 
of that Providence who ' maketh the wrath of man to 
praise him,' while ' the ' unprofitable ' remainder of that 
wrath He restrains.' " 



Such were the views which I entertained of the 
Repeal in 1854. I saw a dark cloud gathering in 
the horizon. I watched it anxiously as it grew 
blacker, rose higher, and finally encircled the polit- 
ical firmament. I saw the people and parties of the 
Free States combining together under skillful dema- 
gogues and politicians in a party of " Opposition to 
Slavery," with a watchword created by this Repeal — 
" Freedom for ^^ansas." The plausible and shrewdly 
devised theory under which all the discordant ele- 
15* 



170 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

ments of faction in the Free States were thus brought 
to unite, was — not as "Abolitionists," not as "Free- 
Soilers," not as "Liberty-men," nor yet even as 
"Northern-men," but — as "lovers of truth, justice, 
humanity and freedom:" — and who that beheld it 
from without did not tremble at the reach and the 
fury of the political tornado their union created ? 

V. 

Such was the effect of the Repeal of the Compro- 
mise by virtue of which the Territory of Missouri 
was erected into a State Organization, and admitted 
into the Union as a Slave State, "on an equal foot- 
ing with the Original States in all respects what- 
ever." The Combination which it originated against 
Slavery was composed of the most divers, radical, 
destructive and discordant elements ever cast into 
the political alembick of any nation. Out of it was 
engendered the most fearful development of sec- 
tional animosity this country has ever known: And 
the utter overthrow of the Confederacy, I religiously 
believe, was averted only by the interposition of that 
Providence who has ever guided and controlled our 
National destiny. 

Yet in all honesty it must be admitted that the 
claim of " Freedom for Kansas " is not all " fiction," or 
" humbug." It is founded in the eternal principles 
of right between man and man. Politically, legally, 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 171 



SO far I mean as the decision of the question is under 
the control of Congress, or the National Sovereignty, 
the opponents of Slavery-Extension have a right to 
claim it. A right founded in honor, honesty and 
justice. A right guaranteed to them, and to human- 
ity, and to the people who may inhabit in that Ter- 
ritory, by as solemn and enduring a Compact as any 
the National Sovereignty ever made with the people 
and the States of the Union. I do not wonder they 
made so much of it in our recent Presidential Can- 
vass. The Repeal outraged justice and insulted 
freedom ; and were it not for the more recent decis- 
ion of the Supreme Court pronouncing the Compact 
itself illegal and void, I would insist, not as a parti- 
zan or a sectionalist, but as mere matter of law, that 
Congress has no power or right to admit Kansas into 
the Union as a Slave State. Certainly under the 
Missouri Compact it has no more right to do it than 
it would have had to admit Michigan, Indiana, or 
Ohio, as Slave States, in defiance of the political 
compact contained in the Ordinance of 1787. In- 
deed, the compact being repealed, what right has 
Congress under the Constitution at all to extend by 
recognizing or protecting Slavery in any State or 
Territory North of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes. 
North Latitude ? In any Territory acquired by the 
New and Enlarged Sovereignty, since the adoption 
of the Constitution, from a Foreign power ? Assur- 



172 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

edly none. The Supreme Court says none. It can- 
not do it unless by virtue of a New Compact, a New 
Compromise. But what availeth either under .the 
Constitution if tested by the opinion of the Supreme 
Court? Whatever Kansas might do in her own 
capacity as a State Sovereignty in relation to Slave- 
ry, in case of her actual admission into the Union 
as such. Congress is evidently without power under 
the Constitution to recognize its extension, or to pro- 
tect its establishment within her precincts. 

"It seems however to be siipposed," says the 
Chief Justice — Dred Scott Case, page 57 — "that 
there is a difference between property in a Slave and 
other property, and that different rules may be ap- 
plied to it in expounding the Constitution of the 
United States — and if the Constitution recognizes 
the right of property of the master in a Slave, and 
makes no distinction between that description of 
property and other property owned by a citizen, no 
tribunal, acting under the authority of the United 
States, whether it be legislative, executive, or judi- 
cial, has a right to draw such a distinction, or to 
deny to it the benefit of the provisions and guarantees 
which have been provided for the protection of pri- 
vate property against the encroachments of the gov- 
ernment." 

This, I concede, may all be very true as applied to 
Slave property within the limits of the original pre- 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 173 



cincts of the United States. But the Constitution itself 
did not recognize " the right of property of a master 
in a Slave" beyond the original limits of its own juris- 
diction. It did make a distinction between that spe- 
cies of property owned within, and that owned outside 
of, the then Territorial precincts of the United States. 
Under the authority of the Constitution Congress 
prohibited the exportation of Slaves from the United 
States into foreign Territory, as also their importa- 
tion into the United States from such Territory ; and 
I see no reason why it should have less power over 
it, or sink the distinction in the same Territory, after 
it becomes the property of the United States. 

It seems, moreover, that "different rules" have 
been applied by the Government of the United States 
to property in a Slave, from those which obtain in 
relation to " other property." It seems to me that 
the application of the whole power of the National 
Sovereignty, both civil and military, to enforce the 
recaption of a Fugitive Slave is "a different rule" 
from any which relates to "other property." I am 
also inclined to think that the rule of representa- 
tion in Congress which bases it on a Slave popu- 
lation, is " a different rule" from any that is applied 
to "other property," and might well be taken to aid 
our construction of the Constitution in relation to it. 
But I do not mean to controvert the ruling of the 
Supreme Court. I will concede that there is no 



174 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 



" distinction between property in a slave and other 
property," and that "different rules" may not be 
applied to it "in expounding the Constitution." 
Let us then apply the same rule which is applied by 
the Court itself. It says — Dred Scott Case, p. 42 — 
that the power given to Congress by the Constitution 
" to dispose of and make all needful rules and regu- 
lations respecting the Territory of the United States, 
applies only io projierty which the States held in com- 
mon at that time, and had no reference ivhatever to 
any Territory, or other property/, which the New 
Sovereignty might afterward itself acquire." And — 
Ibid, pages 47,48 — "whether we take the particular 
clause in question, by itself, or in connection with 
the other provisions of the Constitution, we think it 
clear, that it applies only to the particular Territory 
of which we have spoken, and cannot by any just rule 
of interpretation, be extended to Territory which the 
New Government might afterward obtain from a 
foreign nation . ' ' Consequently the power to prohibit 
Slavery " which Congress may have lawfully exercised 
in this " (the Original) " Territory, while it remained 
under a Territorial Government, and which may 
have been sanctioned by judicial decision, can fur- 
nish no justification and no argument to support a 
similar exercise of power over Territory afterward 
acquired by the Federal Government. We put 
aside, therefore, any argument, drawn from prece- 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 175 



dents, showing the extent of the power which the 
General Government exercised over Slavery in this " 
(Original) "Territory, as altogether inapplicable to 
the case before us:" viz. the prohibition of Slavery 
in this newly acquired Territory. 

Now if this be so, how, I ask, can any provision 
in the Constitution in relation to Slavery " as it ex- 
isted at that time," and in the original precincts of 
the United States, have any wider reference than the 
provision above alluded to by the Court ? How can 
the right of reclamation given by the Constitution, 
be extended to "other property" in slaves, in other 
and then alien Territory, '.'which the New Sover- 
eignty might afterward itself acquire?" Or, how 
can the provision of the Constitution in relation to 
the admission of New States, be extended to S-tates 
formed out of "New Territory which the New 
Sovereignty might afterward itseli* acquire?" Or 
where, under this rule of construction, does the New 
Sovereigilty itself derive its power to admit New 
States ; or " to make all needful rules and regula- 
tions " respecting this new foreign Territory, or " other 
property" therein? I admit, and my argument is, 
that it does not derive these powers originally from 
the Constitution; and I have already pointed out 
the source whence they emanate, but will here let 
the Supreme Court itself answer the question. 

In the case of the American Ocean Insurance 



176 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 



Company, referred to by Chief Justice Taney, — 
Dred Scott Case, pages 48, 49 — the Court before 
whom that case was tried is cited as saying — " Per- 
haps the power of governing a Territory belonging 
to the United States which has not, by becoming a 
State, acquired the means of self government, may 
result necessarily, from the facts, that it is not 
within the jurisdiction of any particular State, and 
is within the power and jurisdiction of the United 
States. The right to govern, may be the inevitable 
consequence of the right to acquire Territory." — 
" The Power," adds the Chief Justice, " stands 
firmly on the latter alternative put by the Court — 
that is, as the inevitable consequence of the rig-ht to 
acquire Territory . ' ' 

That is it, precisely as I have contended. The 
Court here recognizes the distinction between the 
power of the National Sovereignty derived under the 
Constitution, and that derived outside of the Consti- 
tution. The power to govern thus originated then, 
is acquired, as I have said, independently of the Con- 
stitution : — and it is absolutely Sovereign, and exclu- 
sive. But, again, whence the power to acquire 
Territory ? It is not given by the Constitution, 
" except," — as Chief Justice Taney says, Dred Scott 
case, page 52 — " by the admission of New States : " 
And I have shown that it cannot be derived, under 
that provision in the Constitution, according to the 
rule of construction laid down and adopted by the 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 177 



Supreme Court, that is, " by any just rule of inter- 
pretation, according to its original meaning and 
intent," except within the limits of its jurisdiction, 
" as understood when it first came from the hands 
of its framers, and was voted on and adopted by the 
people of the United States — viz. : — within their 
boundaries as settled by the Treaty with Great 
Britain," in 1783. 

All this language is direct, " positive, precise, 
and determinate." It is the- voice of the highest 
tribunal in our land. The voice of Supremacy 
itself. The voice of Constitutional Supremacy. It 
speaks to the point, and in tones of authority which 
have already reverberated throughout the civilized 
world. It tells us that the National Sovereignty has 
no power, under the Constitution, to acquire foreign 
Territory, or to govern it when acquired. That its 
power to acquire Territory originates in its inherent 
Sovereignty outside of the Constitution : And this 
Sovereign right to acquire, — it tells us also — is the 
only source of its Sovereign right to govern such 
a Territory, or other property." 

Now I submit, if this Sovereignty may be thus 
exercised independently of the Constitution, in rela- 
tion to the acquisition of New Territory, or other 
property ; why may it not also exercise itself in the 
same way in relation to other Slave property, coming 
under its 'urisdiction in consequence of this new 
16 



178 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

acquisition of Territory ? If it may derive power 
over, the new Territory, independently of the Con- 
stitution, why may it not also over Slavery in such 
Territory ? It certainly must. Why then may it 
not prohibit as well as protect or recognize it there- 
in ? As I have before observed, it prohibited the 
exportation of Slaves from the United States into 
such Territory, and the importation of Slaves into 
the United States from such Territory, before it 
made the purchase ; and may it not do the same 
thing afterward ? Certainly it may. It did it then 
by virtue of the Constitutional power it had over it. 
It may do it now by virtue of its Sovereignty over 
it, outside of the Constitution. Otherwise its juris- 
diction over Slavery in foreign Territory, is greater 
than its power over it in its own National domain, 
which will hardly be seriously claimed. Sec, 2, U. 
S, Stat, at large, 426. 

Hence, again, I conclude that the Missouri Com- 
pact was not a mere legal enactment of the National 
Legislative, made in pursuance of any authority 
derived under the Constitution. But that it was an 
exercise of the Sovereign capacity of the New Sover 
eignty exercising itself in forming a political Com- 
pact in reference to matters entirely within the scope 
of its jurisdiction, independently of the Constitution. 
So also was the Compact for the Annexation and 
admission of Texas. So also the Compact of the 



ITS NATIONAL KECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 179 



" Compromise measures," embracing the Protective 
Slave Law of 1850. These Compacts severally and 
respectively contain the only true guarantee of the 
National recognition of Slavery, and of protection 
in the ownership of Slave property, beyond the orig- 
inal Constitutional limits of the United States. And 
hence the importance of upholding and preserving 
them in their original perpetuity and integrity ; far 
more important to Slavery than to freedom. 

VI. 

I have thus traced the history of the National 
recognition and relations of Slavery, from the estab- 
lishment of the Confederacy to the present time. 

I have pointed out the nature and extent of 
the National recognition given to it under the 
Constitution. I have also pointed out the origin 
and true guarantee of its protective recognition 
beyond that limit. I think I have sufficiently eluci- 
dated and demonstrated my position. The Opinion 
of the Supreme Court of the United States in the 
Dred Scott Case substantiates it. If I understand 
that opinion, it decides, as matter of National Law, 
that the Government of the United States cannot 
make a Compact, under the Constitution, for the 
prohibition of Slavery in Territory which it may 
have acquired from a Foreign power since its adop- 
tion. That is, under the Constitution, it cannot 



180 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

prohibit tlie Slave owner from carrying his property 
into such New Territory after it becomes the proper- 
ty of the United States, although it might do so, and 
actually did do so, before it became the property of 
the United States. I can easily understand how 
this might be claimed under the Constitution with 
reference to Territory originally a part of the pre- 
cincts of the United States, although such claim 
might be rebutted, in part at least, by the Ordinance 
of 1787. But to say that the exportation of a Slave 
into Foreign Territory to day, is the Slave Trade, 
and justly prohibited by the laws of the United 
States under the Constitution : And that to-mor 
row the transportation of the same Slave, into the 
same Territory become the property of the United 
States, cannot be prohibited by the Sovereignty 
which has purchased it, outside of the Constitution, 
is what I cannot understand, and what I do not 
think the Supreme Court means to say. I am satis- 
fied that the Court was speaking only of the power 
of Congress under the Constitution. And in that 
view I coincide with it. 

If however, the New Sovereignty may not, under 
the Constitution, prohibit the entrance of Slavery 
into such New Territory after it has become the pro- 
perty of the United States, can it recognize and pro- 
tect it there under the Constitution ? Can it legis- 
late it into such New Territory under the Constitu- 



ITS nationjll recognition and relations. 181 

tion ? Certainly not : But it may do all this by 
virtue of its Sovereignty over it outside of the 
Constitution. The Sovereign right to acquire Ter- 
ritory involves the Sovereign right to govern it : 
And if the right to govern is Sovereign, independ- 
ently of the Constitution, it may, by virtue thereof, 
protect or prohibit Slavery therein ; the Supreme 
Court itself being Judge. 

I have said that the Repeal of the Missouri Com 
pact, combined with the ruling of the Supreme 
Court, is fatal to Slavery in the United States. I say 
it, because, as I have shown, the same reasoning will 
overthrow the other Compromises relating to it in 
the Territory acquired from Texas and from Mexico. 
Because, the ruling of the Court must also prevail 
in all future legislation by Congress with reference 
to it, and in the action of the government in refer- 
ence to it, in Territory which has been, or which 
may hereafter be, acquired from a foreign power. 
And it cannot be otherwise than fatal to Slavery. 
If there is no power to prohibit it there, neither is 
there any power to protect it there, under the Consti- 
tution. There is no escape from it unless you admit 
a Supremacy over this New Territory, existing in the 
National Sovereignty outside of the Constitution. 
I say this in no partizan or sectional spirit. I have 
not written with any such spirit, or with any such 
motives or aims. I hope our brethren of the Slave- 
16* 



182 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

holding States will look at if in the same spirit, and 
with like candor and fairness, and that they will 
hold on righteously to the remedy. That is, that 
they will sustain these Compromises as the Ordi- 
nances of a competent National Sovereignty derived 
outside of the Constitution. They must do it. It 
is for their interest to do it. Freedom can well 
afford to see these Compacts discarded and their 
mutuality destroyed. But Slavery cannot. Yet 
such an issue should be deprecated and averted as a 
dire calamity both to freedom and to humanity. 
Let the guarantee of prohibition contained in the 
Missouii Compromise be faithfully carried out, as it 
was in the North-West Territory under the Ordi- 
nance of 1787, and all may yet be well. Agitation 
will cease, harmony will be again restored, and 
sectionalism will be disrobed of its power. But 
provoke a sectional, or partizan,or even a legitimate 
application of this ruling of the Supreme Court to 
all existing and future Compromises on the subject 
of Slavery, and you annihilate forever the recogni- 
tion and protection given to it, outside of the origi- 
nal precincts of the United States, by the guarantee 
of admission into the Union " on an equal footing 
with the Original States in all respects whatever." 
And when you provoke such a conflict as this you 
lessen the political power and shorten the duration 
of Slavery, by depriving it of a National guardian- 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 183 



ship under the Government and Laws of the United 
States. The result possibly might be the destruction 
of our National Union. And is the bondage, or the 
redemption, of three millions of negro slaves worth 
such a cost ? 

My fellow-countrymen, both of the North and the 
South, both of the Free and the Slave States, let us 
look at this matter as our forefathers looked at it, 
with an enlarged patriotism, with a comprehensive 
philanthropy. Let us plant ourselves firmly and 
unitedly on this common and conservative ground of 
the supremacy of our National Sovereignty in its 
own Territory, and the validity of the political Ordi- 
nances made by it on this subject of Slavery therein. 
Slavery must continue to be a part of our political 
existence for many years yet to come. God only 
knows how long, or how variously, it may be inter- 
woven with our National Destiny. New Territory 
will again be acquired by this New Sovereignty, and 
New States formed out of it will continue to seek 
admission into our National Confederacy. Other 
Sovereignties it may be, now independent, and other 
dependent Colonies, may also ask to be annexed to 
these United States. With some of them will and 
must come a new and additional Slave population 
which will again call for the action of our National 
Government in relation to it. It will call for new 
Compacts, for new concessions and restrictions, for 



184 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

new guards and guarantees. If its recognition be but 
limited to an already existing slave population with its 
natural increase as the only source of supply, let it 
come. For freedom's sake, for humanity's sake I say, 
let it come. Be.it ours to stand fast upon the Consti- 
tutional limit to its National recognition. Beyond that 
let us hold it to a stern and strict fulfillment of the 
conditions of the political compact made for its 
further extension. Let us exercise in regard to it a 
patriotic concession, without any timid or time- 
serving submission ; a wise and just conciliation, 
without any servile fear or ungenerous compulsion. 
Thus may we preserve and perpetuate this Union as 
the greatest political good of which we are made the 
conservators. Thus may we best contribute to fulfill 
the mission of this Mighty Republic to mankind. 
For my own part, although I would oppose with a 
resolute resistance the aggressive progress of Slavery 
over broken Compacts and discarded Compromises, 
yet if it be but restricted as I have supposed, I would 
that it might go, and be recognized, and its owner- 
ship protected by the National Sovereignty, in every 
State and Territory in the United States, rather than 
that this Union itself should be dissolved. Better, 
far better, that the whole slave population now 
existing on or near this continent should be brought 
under our restrictive *jurisdiction and Laws, and 

* It was stated by Mr. Buxton in a recent debate in the British House 
of Commons ou the subject — that " there has been of late years a 



ITS NATIONAL RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 185 



under the ameliorating influences of a Protestant 
Christian ownership and servitude, than that this 
Union should be dissolved. For what hope I ask, 
what hope is there for freedom, what hope for hu- 
manity, in the dissolution of our National Union ? 
When, in the history of any nation, has so much been 
done for freedom and for humanity as when the 
American Colonies united under the martial mani- 
festo to resist the aggressions of the Parent State ? 
When so much, as when they united in the Declara- 
tion of Independence and • proclaimed themselves 
absolved from all allegiance to its oppressive Sover- 
eignty ? When so much, as when they made that 
Union perpetual under the Confederation and thereby 
compelled the recognition of their Independence ? 
When so much, as when having secured that Inde- 
pendence they united under the more perfect and 
enduring compact of the ' present Constitution ? 
Was nothing gained for freedom then ? Nothing for 
humanity ? Was it nothing, for this new Sovereignty 
as it took its place proudly among the Nations of 
the Earth, to proclaim its hostility to involuntary 

decided increase in the Slave Trade between the Spanish Colony of 
Cuba and the coast of Africa. In 1847 there were only one thou- 
sand slaves imported into Cuba, whereas during the last two years 
the number had averaged about twenty thousand." — London Daily 
Times, Jan., 1858. 

Let Cuba become a part of the United States and this source o* 
supply is cut off. 



186 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

servitude and oppression by prohibiting the Slave 
Trade ? Who shall undertake to^ say how many 
thousand generations of Africans, to the remotest 
posterity, were saved from Slavery by that one great 
Act of Emancipation ? Was it nothing, to shut off 
from the Slave Trade that extensive country pur- 
chased from France, the Louisiana Territory ? Noth- 
ing to bring its existing mass of servitude, its ports, 
and its commerce, under the prohibitions, restric- 
tions, and penalties, of the Laws of the United States 
in relation to Slavery ? Has nothing been done for 
freedom, or for humanity, by restricting the source 
of supply over this vast continent to the natural 
increase of an already existing slave population ? 
Nothing, in the redemption of New-Mexico, Utah, 
and California, from Mexican misrule and Romish 
superstition ? Nothing, in closing the ports of the 
Atlantic, of Florida, of the Gulf of Mexico, and of 
the vast Pacific coast, against the traffic in human 
flesh and bones ? When or where, in the history of 
any people, has the area of freedom been so munifi- 
cently extended and guarded as by these United 
States of America ? Look at the New Republic 
rising, already risen on the shores of Africa, Liberia, 
a bow of promise and of hope to the Ethiopian tribes, 
the work of the United States. — Is that nothing to 
freedom ? Nothing to humanity ? And can human 
wisdom or forethought calculate the value to man- 



ITS NATIONAL 'RECOGNITION AND RELATIONS. 187 

kind, of a Confederacy which in less than three 
quarters of a century has done so much for our race ? 
Oh ye who at heart love freedom, ye who at heart 
love humanity, cease to revile a Union of States 
which has done, and is doing, so much for both. 
Cease to talk of the dissolution of a Republic 
whose existence is so necessary to the freedom and 
the welfare of the down-trodden children of men. 
Cease to talk of the instant emancipation, or the 
perpetual bondage, of three millions of negro slaves, 
as a greater good to mankind than the existence under 
this Federal Union of twenty-three millions of white 
men, with all their silver and their gold ; their institu- 
tions of government, of learnings of religion, of free- 
dom, of humanity, of philanthropy, and of charity ; 
their enterprizes of commerce, of exploration, of art, 
and of science ; so munificently employed in amelio- 
rating the condition of our race all over the world. 
The Union — in all its aspects and relations whether of 
Freedom or of Slavery — The Union is of God. 
" Ye cannot overthrow it, lest haply ye be found 
even to fight against God." 

THE END. 



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